


2.537

by ellebb



Category: Mass Effect Trilogy, Mass Effect: Andromeda
Genre: Angst, Awkward Flirting, Complete, F/M, First Love, Fluff, It's coming, Turians, Underage Drinking, all the pain, awkward teenagers, best moms, gay turian moms, general adorableness, prickly tol and cinnamon smol, then comes the pain, this is so YA my goodness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-28
Updated: 2017-06-14
Packaged: 2018-11-06 02:03:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 34,792
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11026287
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ellebb/pseuds/ellebb
Summary: Phrixus Jaril, 13, moves to the Citadel at a delicate age: namely, the peak of his teenage angst.   He doesn't expect much from these rich Citadel kids.  But then he meets the Ryder twins, and all their friends, and realizes that he may have been a wee bit wrong about things.  His relationship with Mira Ryder evolves over the years, and he never expected things to end up the way they did.A tale of first love, and last love, in the Milky Way for Pathfinder Ryder.





	1. Chapter 1

“Phrixus.”

He stuck his head out of his door. “What?”

“C’mere for a sec.”

His mothers were unpacking in the living room and kitchen, one unwrapping dishes at the bar and the other sitting cross-legged on the new couch, a forgotten box beside her and a datapad out.  Workaholic.  But that certain spot behind his crest started to itch when he saw the way they were carefully not looking at each other, their mandibles too perfectly composed.

“What?” Phrixus stated.

“ _What_ ,” Domera mimicked, putting away a glass. “Don’t be such a thirteen-year-old boy.”

“I _am_ –” he stopped.  Abruptly turned back the way he came. “I’m not getting sucked into this.”

“Hold up!” Domera ordered.

Phrixus stopped.  In the living room, Calix was studiously scrolling through her datapad.  The old prefab house on Niiet way outstripped this apartment in size; the old living room could have held the new one and the kitchen and the single bathroom.  If they really worked at (and they probably would), his mothers could smooch stretching from the couch over to the bar counter.

Domera chuckled. “Good.  Now, we have something to tell you.”

“‘Kaaaaay,” Phrixus said warily.

In the corner of his eye, Calix’s mandibles twitched.

“We’re pregnant!” Domera all but shouted gleefully.

“ _What_ ,” Phrixus said.

“Isn’t it great?  You’ll be a big brother, you can change diapers, clean up puke–”

“Eaugh, _spirits_ , Mom,” he groaned, his subvocals dipping to the pitch on ‘Mom’ meant for Domera alone. “One, disgusting.  Two, you’re just screwing with me.”

Domera cackled. “Guilty.  But listen– aren’t you relieved now?  Makes the move seem like a cakewalk.”

“Yeah, it could always be worse,” Phrixus drawled, rolling his eyes.

“Oh, don’t be like that.  Look, at worst it’ll–”

“–Only be two years until bootcamp,” he finished for her. “Yeah, I know.”

She shook her head, chuckling. “Okay, okay.  We get it.  You and your teenager-iness are impervious to consolation.  Go on, then.  You’re released from our cruelties.”

“Thanks,” he stated flatly, mandibles twitching.

As he retreated to his room (all of a few yards from the main room), Domera, with her voice rising with amusement, said to Calix, “Did you see his face?”

“ _I know_!”

“He goes– he goes, ‘ _Eaugh, spirits, Mom_!’”

The two of them shrieked with laughter.

Hilarious.

-

Later, when he was down range, watched by the sarges and their overbearing expectations, or when he was surviving the interminable numbness of trench boredom with the occasional furor of a firefight– later, he wouldn’t be able to picture the face or name of the salarian the teacher sat him next to in chemistry.  Didn’t matter really; the salarians were always coming and going.  Give them a month, and suddenly, oooh, I’m too wise and smart and sooo much older than you to associate with you children.  The asari had the opposite problem.  Always there but never growing up.

Anyway.  Years later, he could never quite place his lab partner, but he would always remember when he sat down and the girl in front of him swiveled to inspect him.  And those clan markings.  He would recognize them anywhere; any turian worth his salt would.  A Quentius.  That girl was a Quentius.  And that was when he knew he was way out of his depth.

After her deliberate perusal, the Quentius girl turned back around in her seat and whispered something to the female human beside her, her hand coming up to hide her mandibles from his view.  And as he glanced around, Phrixus recognized nearly all the flashes of clan markings around the room.  Ambassadors, generals, governors, presidents.  These kids were from the top of the Hierarchy.

And here he was, just Phrixus Jaril.  Just a nobody from some backwater colony.  Yeah, Calix had just been assigned as the colony rep to the Citadel, but she was literally the first ever in her office.  Until last year, Niiet had just been an outpost and only barely met the criteria to upgrade to colony status.  The Hierarchy wasn’t supposed to be like that of course; nepotistic or whatever.  You were accountable for yourself, and your actions would earn your position.  But everyone knew better.

It wasn’t that much of a coincidence that certain clans bred excellence.

In front of him, the Quentius girl and the human were whispering.  He caught the human’s eye over her shoulder.  She whipped back around and elbowed the Quentius girl when she giggled.  He could count on his hands the number of humans he’d met.  And all of them had been adults.

Students were still filing in, and Phrixus looked up when a salarian paused in the aisle between the tables.  She– _Bavak_ , that was it– sat down beside him and introduced herself.  In front of him, her stool squealed as Quentius swiveled fully to face them.

“Bavak, introduce us,” she commanded.  The human looked at them, too.

Her nostrils and eyelids fluttering, Bavak stared between them all. “How about some manners?”

Quentius’s mandibles flicked. “Whatever.  Don’t be such a salarian.”

“Yes, ma’am, Capt’n Turian Commander ma’am,” Bavak said, high-pitched. “Phrixus Jaril, this is Aela Quentius.  She sucks.  Stay away from her.”

Aela Quentius made a rude gesture with her digits and mandibles.

“And Mira Ryder.  She’s okay,” Bavak added.

The human made a little wave, sparing a smile for Bavak.  He’d thought he’d been ready to pull out the whole, ‘What the hell do they know’ against these people and their thinking that he was some hick.  But maybe he’d accidentally painted it onto his forehead the last time he’d done his markings: HICK, in giant block letters.  He didn’t know how to figure the look in Mira Ryder’s face, or Bavak’s.  He’d seen plenty vids, of course, but– how did they tell each other anything without mandibles, anyway?

“And where do they grow Phrixus Jarils?” Aela asked, her blue eyes squaring him up.

“The tissue replicators are pretty amazing these days,” Phrixus stated drily.

Aela and her friend snorted.

“Funny,” Aela said.

And the two of them stared at him expectantly (three for that matter, but salarians always looked like they were staring at you), so he cleared his throat.

“Niiet,” he said.

“Oh, _Niiet_ ,” Aela said.  He thought she was being sarcastic, and he was prepping some vicious comeback he’d think of in three days, when she leaned forward.

“Niiet.  Myredda system, only three jumps to either the Citadel or Palaven.  Nice mineral deposits, even eezo.  Not a lot.  But the Hierarchy always needs it.  You must be the new representative’s son.”

Phrixus struggled to keep his eyes calm and his mandibles still.  Aela Quentius was dressing him down like some sort of research project.  He didn’t think even he could pick out Niiet on a cluster, on a system map.  It was a single column on an infinite data list.  A speck of snot.

But Aela Quentius was looking at him as if compiling away means of operation, tax deductibles, overhead– all the things that declared him on one side, her on the other.  As if she already knew where he and she would stand, come two years and bootcamp’s trials by misery.  Well.  Maybe she did.

That’s mostly what he thought about through the drone of the lesson module.

He would wonder later on why, despite his complete determination to tough his two years out at the fancy Citadel prep high as a silent loner– why he had lunch with Aela and her friends when she asked, and why he hung out with that group after classes on the Silversun Strip.  Whatever his inclination to despise such a notion, he’d guess he had still been a kid that wanted to belong.

-

“So… you just moved to the Citadel?” Mira Ryder asked him, twirling the straw of her drink.

They’d all gone to Armax Arsenal Arena and played a (mostly) friendly match, casual settings, no armor.  He hadn’t done terribly; running after the local vermin back home with shitty half-baked lasers had given him some experience, at least.  Turned out, Mira Ryder had a twin that was loud and flashy, and liked to sneak biotics into a no-biotics-allowed match.  The twin– Forta Ryder– and Aela Quentius ended up with best scores.  Their bloodthirst sated, the lot of them had trotted to a dextro-levo food stand, and Phrixus had somehow been shuffled to the back of the line where Mira Ryder had waffled for ages about her order.  Her brother had gotten fed up and run on, but Phrixus felt awkward just ditching her.

That was how he came to trail after the some-odd half dozen teenage turians, salarians, asari, and single human (all of them making a lot of noise reenacting the finer points of their match), and walking beside a human girl through the neon controlled chaos of Silversun.

Phrixus flicked his mandibles, and then wondered if he should be more “obvious” and shrug or something.  And then he hated the impulse, didn’t want to change just because of some alien.  But then, isn’t that the feeling of a hick– basically, he was over-thinking it like an idiot.

He cleared his throat. “Yeah.  Got here three days ago.”

“First time here?”

“Yeah.”

“Well.  What do you think so far?”

“Of the Citadel?”

She nodded.  Her long… _hair_ swished about on top of her head.  Like a… like a _head-tail_ or something.  Strands stuck to the side of her face.

“It’s…” Phrixus said. “It’s too big.  And somehow, kind of too small.”  He eyed the false afternoon sky. “Claustrophobic.”

Mira Ryder’s straw squealed as she pulled at it with her teeth.  She appeared to be biting at a smile.

“That’s funny.  Every time I’m planetside, I’d say the exact same thing,” she said.

At his look, Mira supplanted, “We were born here.  Me and Forta.  Lived here all our lives.  Don’t go down gravity wells that often.”

“Huh,” was all Phrixus could think to say.

As a pair, they darted past a pamphlet peddler.  Ahead, the other group was hooting and making general nuisances of themselves.  From the corner of his eye, he studied her.  What vids didn’t really convey was how _small_ humans seemed.  And, like.  Proportioned incorrectly.  Like they shouldn’t be able to move.  He remembered the way Forta Ryder had shot across the Arena floor like a rocket.  Like they shouldn’t  move as well as they did.

Mira glanced up at him.  He looked away.  His mandibles were vibrating a little, but surely she wouldn’t notice.

“Umm,” she hummed, chewing on her straw. “Don’t take this weird, but have you never met a human before?”

Shit.  Of course.  Lived on the Citadel all her life, friends with a turian.  Of course she would be able to interpret his expression.

The pause in which he scrambled to think of a reply dragged on.  Until he made a weird subvocal-rattling cough.

“No,” he muttered. “I mean, you know.  Passing ice merchants and stuff.  But, uhh… I guess, never really one my age.  Niiet’s hundred percent turian.”

“Hmm,” she mused. “Opposite problem here.  We were the only human kids around for a long time.”

“Huh,” he said.

It was getting on toward evening, and the crowds had thickened.  An elcor declaimed couplets on a corner, laughter shrilled out of every back alley, a diffusion of harsh neon glyphs burned on every stationary surface: the total sensation of the area, the closeness of literally every kind of alien ever– it all whirled and swam in his head.

“For what it’s worth,” Mira Ryder was saying.  He turned to her, just to have something to drown out the deafening muddle of everything else. “I really like the Citadel.  It’s the center of the galaxy.  People are always coming and going, something’s always happening.  You’ll find something you like here.”

And then ahead of them her brother waved back at them, shouted something (he didn’t really remember), and Mira waved and ran ahead.  When she jogged over there, weaving between people, the image of that float-y, bouncy mass of head-tail streaked with fluorescent blue light got lodged into his memories.  Years later, he’d see it.  Having a beer out of uniform, getting jettisoned from a drop ship.  He never knew why, exactly, that particular bit of early-Mira so stuck with him.

Some things were just permanent, he guessed.

-

A month later, Bavak left the prep high to pursue her bachelor’s.  Her first bachelor’s, anyway.

The class having an uneven number, Bavak had done most group assignments with Aela and Mira before Phrixus came.  So he ended up doing the same when she left.  And he took her spot in Aela’s Arena group.  It was weird how easy a turian could fill the hole left by a salarian.  And it was weird how easily he got caught up in Aela’s… whatever.

She had more followers on the extranet than any thirteen year old girl had a right to, and it seemed like she knew the entire clan history of each and every one of them, down to their most obscure family branches.  She knew everyone, she knew everything, and she clearly was unafraid to let you know it.

He wanted to turn a cold shoulder at every nosy extrapolation she made about Niiet’s integration into the Hierarchy whole.  He should have; most of her nonsense bewildered him.  But the brightness in her eyes and the excited quiver in her mandibles bore down on him like the artificial sun of the Citadel holo-sky.

He wanted to tell Forta Ryder to go shove it whenever he dragged him on a suicide blitz against Aela’s team, or to the arcade, or to the food stands.  He wanted to tell Forta to knock off with his incessant habit of taking photos of everyone ever and selfies. Yet somehow Phrixus ended up with an endless string of snaps of Aela and Mira, Mira and Forta, all the others, himself interspersed with his dumb sour look– all cycling on his room’s monitor along with his photos from home.  From Niiet.

“Phrixus?  Can you get the door?”

He dropped his datapad beside him and sat up on his bed. “Just a sec.”

Brushing the console beside it, the door silently slid open and revealed Calix with load of laundry hefted on her hip.

“You didn’t have to do that,” he told her, reaching to take it.  He’d been doing his own laundry for over a year now.

She swiveled deftly out of his reach and ducked around him into his room, her eyes glittering with curiosity.

“Call it nostalgia for a task that didn’t involve licking the boots of some ambassador’s undersecretary,” she told him, flicking her mandibles. “And a thank you would be appropriate, I think.”

“Thanks,” he said.

She dumped the laundry on his bed and started folding.  She was looking around in a totally obvious way, determined to gather as much intelligence possible on this rare foray into her mysterious teenage son’s den.  Phrixus stood beside her and picked up a shirt to fold.

“So,” Calix said.

“So,” he said.

She bumped him with a hip in retaliation.  She eyed him.

“You’re ‘adjusting’ well.  That’s the word, right?  Adjusting?”

“I guess,” he said.

She tilted her head toward his monitor and the image of Aela and five of their group. “You’ve made friends.  They seem, you know.  Cute.”

He flicked his mandibles.  And stayed quiet.  He meant to keep quiet, too.  Except she was staring at him.

“I don’t know,” he said. “That one’s a Quentius.  Her father’s, like, a stone throw from primus.  I mean, you know.”

Calix kept folding.  She hummed lightly.

He cleared his throat. “The salarian councilor’s grandson is in my programming class?  Did you know that?”

“Hey,” she said, looking at him. “You know something?  You’re a snob.”

He dropped a pair of socks. “What?”

“Or reverse snob.”

“That’s not a thing.”

“You’re making it a thing,” she told him. She dropped a folded shirt and patted it, then turned about to face him. “Stop trying to find something to angst over.  You’re Phrixus Jaril, and you don’t have anything to be embarrassed about.  Your grades are apparently good, even with your backwater education.  ‘Cause we haven’t gotten any accusatory calls about you dropping out.  Your friends are cute.”

She poked him in the arm. “I’d call this move a success.”

He blinked at her.  And then, shook his head with a snort. “I guess.”

“Hey,” she said, taking his arm into her hand. “You’re doing good.  I’m proud of you.”

His mandibles tucked in embarrassment.  Her hand tugged smartly, and she pulled him to a hug.  She was still taller than him, but they all knew it was matter of time.  Still, it was nice.  To be hugged with her able to reach all around and then some, while it was still possible.

“Thanks, Mom,” Phrixus murmured, his subvocals inflecting up for the ‘Mom’ just for her.

She patted him on the back. “There we go.  Much better.”

They went back to folding.  She side-eyed him.  He stumbled when she sharply hip-bumped him again.

“Hey–”

“Jeez,” she said. “Making me say such corny stuff.”

“What!  You were the one–”

“ _So corny_ ,” she groaned loudly over him.

He finally laughed and threw a pair of socks at her face.  She retaliated with a pair of pants.  In the aftermath of the laundry war, Calix lightly skipped out and left him to clean up the mess they’d made.

-

“ _Forta, no_ –!”

Completely disregarding Mira’s shout, she and Phrixus both were flattened by the sudden pressure blast from Forta’s biotics.  He was gone, trailed by blue after-image.  Mira swore under her breath, and her hand shot to Phrixus’s sleeve to keep him pulled down under cover.  The reason why became clear when buzzing shots of orange light, deadly to their “vital” sensors, filled the air over their heads.

It was a trap.

“We got them pinned, keep it up!”

A gleeful chorus of whoops answered.

“Dirty bastards!” Phrixus yelled.

“Some friends you are!” Mira added.

“All’s fair!” N’tessa (asari, galactic lit, a year ahead of them but pretty decent about it) shot back smugly. “But hey!  Hold up guys, hold up.”

The barrage of orange lasers ceased.

“We’ll give you a chance to surrender.  Two clean shots, and you guys can get out before it gets too embarrassing.”

Phrixus looked at Mira, and she looked back at him.

When he thought back to this moment, he’d remember it as the first time he really saw something other than “human.”  He’d been thinking it for a while, he was sure, but something about _seeing_ it made it different.  The way her stray _curls_ clung to her temple and cheek, sweat beading and binding.  The roundness in her features, so strange to his eye.  The softness, the thin skin, all of it– or maybe he was just making himself remember it that way.  Because things had ended up the way they had, and he didn’t want to believe that he had never had these sentiments, that…  Well, he supposed it didn’t matter if all you did was _remember_.

Mira’s brow came down.  And that, he would later realize, actually translated to him.  She must have seen the answer in his own face, because at the very same moment they drew their fake Arena pistols and fired over the edge of their cover.

N’tessa squawked, and the score display overhead flashed for another point to Team Rydin’ Hygh (Forta was kind of pushy about getting to name things; and about pushing all the buttons).

After that, their enemies still outnumbered him and Mira, but they had the advantage of surprise and cleaned out their immediate area.  Their friends groaned, shot them dirty looks, and skulked off to the exit.  Then, they finally found Forta in a messy dogfight with Aela, and Mira picked her off with a pretty shot from long range.

It was– all things considered– fucking awesome.

Phrixus and Mira tied for high scores, so they were treated at the usual street stand.  His team told off Forta for falling for such an obvious ploy, and they all served him a generous round of ribbing.  But it was hard to really put heat into it when the guy smiled so broadly and laughed just as hard as any of them.

Phrixus didn’t even feel his usual compulsion to accuse Forta of potentially getting people killed in a real gunfight.  His carapace felt lighter than it had in a long time.

He turned in his seat toward Mira.  Reaching across the table, he clicked his cheap aluminum drink container against hers.

“That was an awesome shot at the end there,” he said.

The group of them sat around the street stand, making enough noise to earn a few glares from the owner.  The batarian was clanking about in his tiny kitchen, huge billows of greasy smoke drifting out the tiny order window.  But even through the smoke, he saw her swivel sharply, look at him, and just as sharply look off to the side.

“Uh, thanks…” she stumbled.  She cleared her throat. “I mean, yeah– oh, not yeah it was awesome– not that it _wasn’t_ –”

She stopped.  And did a thing with her lips. “I meant, uh, yeah, I’m thinking of trying out a sniper rifle.  Dad thinks I’d be good for it.”

His mandibles pulled out. “He military?”

“Yeah,” she said. “Alliance.  Obviously.  Oh!  I didn’t mean– just, you know, the human thing.”

“Right.  I, uh, got that,” Phrixus said.

Her face seemed a bit… like a balloon with too much air or something, all puffed out and taut, staring at him.  Then she looked down, deflating a little.

To be frank, he had no clue what the hell was happening.

He remembered that well enough: the busted grav stabilizer feeling of bewilderment.  It was much better, and yet much worse, than the feelings that followed.  The anxiety, the neediness, the flutter, and all other manners of adolescent torture.

-

The aftermath or the fallout– or maybe the beginning?– was unmistakeable.  But he would never be able to figure out where or when the seeds for it got sown.  Maybe it had been that tap between cheap aluminum drink cups, maybe it had been the exchanged look at the Arena, maybe it had been the very first meeting.  And then, maybe it had been something in them all along.

The symptoms could not have manifested with more clarity.

When Mira struggled through chem and geometry, and had her little freak-outs over their group chat room– Phrixus would send over the files of his notes and copies of his homework.  He eventually had to encrypt them for her alone when everyone else thought they were being cute and started bitching about not getting sent the files, too.

When Aela started in on one of her tears through political-economic webs in the clans and their potential expansions throughout the fringe colonies, and then Phrixus started making passive-aggressive jabs which Aela returned like the impending squabble was some kind of puzzle– Mira would jab Aela in the ribs and tell her to leave it alone.

When Mira stood there at the food stand, abandoned by her brother and her indecisiveness popping a vessel in the batarian stall owner’s forehead– Phrixus would brush past her and order for them both.  And she would go, “Oh!  How did you know that’s exactly what I wanted!”  And he would flick his mandibles dismissively to hide the strange warm pit sprouting somewhere near his chest.

When Phrixus got into a _mood_ (that’s what his moms called it anyway), complaining about the state of the school food– supposedly best school on the Citadel, a cold spit away from the Presidium even, and this is what we get?  Or what the hell even was art and lit classes supposed to do for him?  He was shipping out soon, probably end up artillery fodder anyway– Mira’s bitten smile would finally burst into a laugh, calling him grumpy or something similarly demoralizing to his ire.  

And it didn’t even seem to matter.


	2. Chapter 2

“You’re looking a little _bare-faced_ today.”

Phrixus looked up from his omnitool.  Aela stood nearby, looming over his seat in the school’s cafeteria.  Others were interspersed at the other tables, chatting in the downtime before class.  He forced himself to resist the urge to reach a finger up to his clan markings.  It had been a while since he’d last touched them up.

“And you’re looking a little like you’ve got your mandibles lodged up everyone’s ass,” he shot back.

Aela’s blue eyes twinkled.  She rapped a hand on his table and tossed her chin toward the exit to the rest of the halls.

“C’mon.  We’ll be late to another thrilling rendition of the standardized chem module.”

“First alarm hasn’t even--”

“Annnnd _that_ is the kind of attitude one would expect from some no-ambition, no-faced colonist.”

Despite himself, he got up to follow after her, weaving through the squeaky government-issued lunch tables.

“Annnnd _that_ is the sort of comment I’d expect from some shirking clan leach,” he drawled at her.

Aela’s chuckle vibrated down to her subvocals. “You’re not bad, Jaril.”

“Can’t say I can return the compliment.”

Students littered the halls, leaning against the walls to chat, play music from their omni-tools, and generally wasting time before class.

“Hey,” she said, tapping his shoulder with the back of her hand. “You know, you should think about switching sides.”

He looked at her. “What?”

She stopped walking and dodged around to stand in front of him.  Her eyes were sizing him up. “Switch sides.  Join my team.  That idiot Ryder is just dragging you down.  C’mon.  You know I’m right.”

Phrixus barked out a laugh. “That’s what this is?  Here I thought you were being friendly or something.”

“C’mooon.  I’m awesome at point.   _Tons_ better than him.   _Tons_.”

“Okay, unlike some people?  I take turian honor seriously.  I’m no double-crosser.”  He finished with a dramatic fake around her, walking away backwards and with a cheery wave.

Aela returned him a rude gesture.

Phrixus rolled his eyes and turned back around to walk toward class.  And then, a few yards away he saw a back he’d been watching for months now (from his seat in chemistry and from his position providing cover fire at the Arena).  She was talking to someone-- another human girl, another name and face he couldn’t place years later.  But that didn’t matter; ‘cause he saw an opportunity.

He snuck up silently, and slowly, oh so carefully-- he kneed the back of her weird backward knees.  He had to crouch a bit to reach, her being so damn small, but he still popped up to grab the back of her shirt before she fell squawking into her friend.

Her arms pinwheeled to balance herself, and she swiveled to face him.

“ _What_ \--” Mira exclaimed.  She stopped as she saw him, bending to look up.  Her expression cycling through irritation and surprise and something that was more interesting-- flustered?  What?  Was that what that was?  The sliding gaze and the lips working around unsaid things.

“What are you doing?” she said finally after what seemed an eternity.  Her friend at her shoulder was a boring blur, an afterthought.

He didn’t know what he was doing.  He had no freaking clue.  So instead of answering, he tilted his head toward chemistry and said, “You’re gonna be late.”

“First alarm hasn’t even rung,” she said.  But even though she said that, she still waved at her friend and trotted after him down the hall.

He kept his stride shorter than usual. “Your best friend’s a snake.”

“What?” she laughed.

“Aela just tried to get me to join her team.”

She laughed again. “Augh!  Traitor!  I can’t believe her-- and now I have to fill out a lab report with her.”

“You can copy mine.”

“I shouldn’t.  Not again.  I think D’medda’s figured it out.”

“You’re gonna do it anyway.”

“...Yeah, I am.” She smiled, and he wouldn’t mind at all if he could keep her smiling and laughing like that.

-

He started getting nervous around the time his gaze got stuck in places he didn’t mean for it to.

Her hair, which had been so bizarre before, suddenly caught him in the way it swung and curled and seemed to be different everyday, yet somehow smelling of _look you can just reach out and touch, how easy._

Lips that were such a different shape, and moved so differently.  Broadened to a smile that made him feel warm and made him sweat at turns.  He thanked the spirits that he at least didn’t have a stuttering problem.  They looked soft too-- the lips, that is-- were they?  He didn’t want to know, and yet he did.  Badly.

The one time at the Arena he watched her reach up for the last set of vital sensors, on a high shelf, and he got all mired in the way her back bent.  And she just turned into this whole coiling, curving mess-- except not a mess, it made perfect sense.  An alien logic, but perfect anyways.  And the ride of her shirt upwards, the little indent in the small of her back.

And it’s not like he was too much of a gentleman or whatever to not look at her rear, too.  That was part of the mire, he guessed.

A waist, a fringe.  Legs if you went for that.  Those were supposed to be the things, right?  Right?

He didn’t think it really a coincidence that it was around this time that the Arena matches got a little more heated, headed toward serious.  Not as fun, anyway.  Or not fun in the same way.  The group started sprouting thorns in places that had just been points of harmless ribbing before.  Maybe it was the turians’ faults.  They were turning fourteen.

-

There was the one time he was walking to the tram station with Mira and Forta, worrying a bit about the hour and how to spin his pushing curfew to his moms, and the twins were talking about something-- when they passed by an occupied alley.

A man-- that is, a turian man and a human man were entwined against the dodgy rust-streaked wall of the alley.  Their legs were shoved up against each other’s crotches, and their hands roamed, and-- the human, mandible-less human and all, nuzzled against the turian’s desperately splayed mandibles.  It was… different from a vid or anything like that.  It was, like, good.  Arousing, but also… painful.  Cutting into his chest and twinging in his lungs.

And then Forta went and wolf-whistled, yelling, “Save some for the fishes, huh!”

The couple jerked up and stared at them, and the turian got this _look_.  He pulled up, fully towering over everybody, and said, “Say that to my face, you little--”

“Fuck, run!” Forta screeched.  And off he went.

Mira and Phrixus swore, sprinting to catch up with him.  They wove through the loose crowd, laughing, accidentally bumping into pedestrians and getting yelled at.  She fell behind, and he reached back.  And he caught her hand, just when he saw that they weren’t being followed at all, but it didn’t matter because they were going too fast now to stop.  His hand enveloped hers.  It was small and warm.

They reached the tram, hurtling through the open doors.  Forta was already there, laughing his ass off.  Mira slapped him on the shoulder.

“You idiot!” she scolded. “You’re really going to get your ass kicked one of these days.”

Forta wheezed, wiping at his eyes. “Not if I’m the faster one.”

And she couldn’t help snorting, and then falling apart into laughter again.  And Phrixus had been grinning, and he got all tickled again too.  It didn’t matter that the other people in the tram were looking at them.  His side ached with a laughter stitch, and his hand stung where hers had been.

-

About a year after he moved to the Citadel, Aela and her group got a little bored with hanging out on Silversun, playing cops and robbers.

They started loitering around Aela’s house (on the Presidium, ridiculous footprint, and made Phrixus a little queasy), or at the flats of her “friends.”  They were usually students that had already graduated from their school, or just straight up underlings of her father’s.  Someone got their older sibling to buy them beer, and Phrixus found himself pushing curfew a lot.

For a good while, he thought he’d had his sober act pretty on point, until an enormous bottle of hangover relief appeared in the bathroom medicine cabinet.  He nearly ended up being late with how long it took him to work up the balls to leave the bathroom that morning.  That also triggered a guilty response whenever someone offered him a drink afterwards, dampening his desire to get even a little buzzed.

Well.  For a week or so, anyway.

It was just-- he hadn’t thought he’d ever start dreading bootcamp.  He always thought that would be his ticket off his boony outpost or colony or whatever.  His ticket off the entitled, politician-infested (no offense, Mom) Citadel, away from his school full of snooty little trust fund babies.  He’d always thought of bootcamp as the beginning of him finding his proper place in the Hierarchy.  That’s what turians did, right?

But he started feeling pressed down, like someone had miscalculated the local environment’s atmo pressure.  Like he was trapped in a volus suit or something.  With like, rabid varren circling and nipping at his spurs.

He hadn’t expected to get so attached to the stream of Forta’s selfies on his monitor, the impromptu shots of Aela and their friends, and that one pic of Mira-- just sitting on a sofa at Aela’s place, not even looking at the camera but taken at that perfect moment where her smile broadened and the edges of her mouth curled.

It’s not like he’d tinkered with his monitor’s program to repeat that one photo a little more often.

So what if a buzz helped him get rid of that pressed down feeling for a little while?  So what?  And not only that, but he started getting afraid around Mira.  Not, like, afraid _of_ her, but afraid of saying something or revealing something-- what that “something” was, was yet another thing that had him reaching up to physically stop the rapid flick and twitch of his mandibles.  A buzz helped him look at her without completely freaking out.  Liquid courage, right?

Except he kept remembering the couple in the alley.  In the middle of programming or galactic history or whatever.  On a vid call with her.  The way those two bodies, so dissimilar and yet with everything in common that was important, had fit together like natural selection had always meant for them to be feeling each other up in some alley.  Spirits, he was a mess.

-

[mira]: hey

[phrixus]: hey

[mira]: so you’re alive!!

[phrixus]: haha, yeah

[mira]: missed like ages of class

[phrixus]: it was three days

[phrixus]: had a cold

[phrixus]: lot of lung junk

[mira]: havent been in the chatroom tho

[mira]: and ive been messaging u

[phrixus]: yeah i know

[phrixus]: sorry

[mira]: well

[mira]: it’s not a big deal except aela said she talked to you

[mira]: sent u an invite to an arena match

[mira]: and you told her to fuck off like always

[mira]: i mean

[mira]: are things okay?

[phrixus]: yeah im feeling better really

[mira]: thats not what i meant

[mira]: are you mad at me?

Lying in his bed, Phrixus closed his eyes and swore quietly.  Shit.  What the hell did he say to that?  Tell her he didn’t know what to do anymore, that he thought about her constantly and if at least he was away there wasn’t a danger of him just busting a nut or something.  He could remember the alley couple safely.  Watch vids.  Alone, he could pretend that the squashed feeling didn’t exist.

[phrixus]: no

[phrixus]: of course not

[phrixus]: ive just had to think about things

[phrixus]: sorry

[mira]: its okay

(No, it wasn’t.)

[mira]: aela’s having a party

[mira]: saturday in zakera that student teacher’s place

[mira]: you know the one

[phrixus]: yeah

[phrixus]: aela told me

[mira]: oh

[mira]: right

[mira]: you gonna make it

[phrixus]: think so

[mira]: cool

[mira]: night then

[phrixus]: night

-

All inconvenient questions of moral obligations aside, the student teacher for their programming class was pretty awesome for letting a bunch of barely-teens use her place for a real rager with cases of cheap beer and watered down supposedly-horosk (same with that levo vodka).  Aela was pretty careful about wrapping the different levo and dextro drinks with red and blue tape each.

He’d told his moms that he’d be spending the night at Forta’s.  Which was true; Forta had invited him to crash on their couch afterwards, but only because both their parents weren’t there.  Business trip or something.  Still, he ended up dragging his feet for so long that Domera started giving him looks (Calix was working late).  Eventually, he steeled himself and took off with his duffle bag of stuff.

On the tram ride he fielded off messages from Forta and Aela.  He thought about getting off at the next exit and hopping on the first tram back.  He didn’t, though.  He stayed in his weird smelling tram seat, ignoring the chatter of bar-hoppers in the car with him.

The student teacher’s apartment wasn’t that impressive for their crowd from the finest prep high on the Citadel: fourth floor walk-up over a grease trap of a restaurant, two bedrooms, a bath, and a kitchen and livingroom.  Honestly, it wasn’t that much different from Phrixus’s own place.  Except not as new or nice.  But the Zakera flat was empty of supervision and the neighbors didn’t even blink at the little gangs of kids with clumsily hidden cases of beer under their jackets.  They could even hear other parties on the other floors.

When he got there, someone had rigged up a speaker system that thumped the cheaply-fabricated walls.  Torej and Nen (the engineers from his Arena team; later on he still talked to them, ran into them when his battalion had a joint operation with STG) loitered in the entryway.  Forta was looking for him, they said.

The low lights, the overpowering burn of cheap alcohol in the air, the density of his classmates in the small space, the insistent blare of the music-- it reminded him of that pressed down feeling.  But this was a sullen, obtuse form of it, a release.  Honestly, he was probably remembering it as a lot better than it was.  A bunch of tipsy teenagers trying to act like they weren’t nearly as nervous as they were, clinging to the walls and furniture as they chatted.  They put on brave faces, but no, they weren’t nearly brave enough to _dance_ or whatever.

In one of the back rooms, Forta stood when he saw Phrixus in the doorway.  A circle of them sat around a horde of little disposable aluminum cups, a blue-taped and red-taped bottle sitting in the center.  Some sort of drinking game, judging by the stretches of pregnant pause broken by violent gusts of laughter.  Mira sat in the circle, too, red in the face and laughing at the last penalty-taker.  And then Forta filled his vision, grinning and shoving a cup into his hands.  He just barely caught a glimpse of her looking up and spotting him, her smile mid-way to somewhere.

Forta pushed him out the door, though, and hustled him into the kitchen and out onto a balcony so narrow it practically squished you against the face of the building.  The blue and purple lanes of Zakera spilled out beneath them, a late night crowd filing toward bars and clubs.

“Oooh, Sargeant Coolman Jaril, fashionably late,” Forta quipped.  He playfully dug a fist into his arm, which Phrixus swatted at.

“Knock it off,” he told him. “I’m here, aren’t I?”

“Yeah, but you already missed Garcia puking her guts out.”

“A real tragedy.”

He eyed Forta.  He was kind of … square in the face.  Rounded along his nose and at the edges, a little flat over all, with cutting cheek bones.  Like Mira’s face.  And those little dots, brown, a whole colony of them across his nose and cheeks.  There was a name for that.

In the time he’d known Forta, he’d put on weight.  Lingering in the the biotiball team’s weight room.  Had no intention to ever join the team, but he liked the guys and the equipment.  That wasn’t a euphemism-- except maybe it was?  Phrixus didn’t always know with Forta.  Anyway, he’d probably end up stocky and buff in a few years.

They chatted some more, Phrixus nursing his drink.  He asked how much he had to catch up.

Forta shrugged. “No, not me.  I’m one and done tonight.  Mira and I decided to do this thing from now on: one gets to get wasted, the other plays babysitter.  Seems, you know.  Smart.”

Phrixus twiddled with the aluminum cup in his hand.  For all that they liked to bicker, the twins obviously cared about each other a lot.  Finished each other’s sentences, had inside jokes.  He was an only kid.  Didn’t know what having a sibling would be like.  If it was him, would he be alright with his alien friend… thinking about his sister or brother?  He didn’t know.

“Hey,” Forta said. “Listen…”

Oh shit.  Wait, wait--

“I know, like, things have been getting weird for you guys-- Uh.  I mean, you know.  All the turians.”

Oh, thank spirits.

Forta shifted against the balcony railing, wearing that sheepish look that a lot of the teachers found so charming.  Muddled shouts drifted up from the alley below.

“I just want you to know, man,” Forta continued. “You wanna talk about it, I’m here.  Or you wanna shoot up mercs at the arcade or whatever.  You can always call me, okay?”

Phrixus shifted, blinking.

“Or you wanna get blitzed tonight?  I am totally, one hundred percent up for vomit duty!”

Phrixus finally laughed. “Woooow, Forta Ryder.  Being empathetic and considerate, wooooow.”

“Oh, shut up,” Forta said. “Trying to be nice here.  Clearly, you are too salty of an entity for it to work.”

“I’m not salty.”

“You are.  You are the saltiest person I’ve ever met.  And I’ve met my dad.”

Phrixus finished off his drink, letting it burn down his throat.  He crushed the cheap cup and tossed it over the railing. “Alright, Mister Vomit Monitor.  Go get me another drink.  I’m so sad, boo-hoo.”

Forta laughed. “You’re such an asshole.”

They ended up heading back inside in search of dextro beer together.  He never really could remember much about the party.  And not because he drank a lot that night.  He had the one and then sipped on a beer.  No, the party itself hadn’t been the important thing.  Not then, and definitely not later.  But he remembered losing Forta at some point, and getting into some conversation with Aela.  The thing with Aela he definitely, completely forgot what it was about within the day, and that was so shitty and ironic.  Considering how important it became.

No, he didn’t drink a lot, but he had enough to start thinking he felt steady enough to go look for her, maybe explain, maybe-- he didn’t know.  Something. 

So he looked up, long since lost in the track of whatever Aela was saying to him.  And he saw her across the room, over the heads of the people on the overpacked couches, over the amused shrieks as someone spilled something, over the cloying elusiveness of the patches of dancing light in the thick darkness.  She saw him, too.  Across that tiny apartment, across that rift.

He said something to Aela; it didn’t matter.  But he needed to go there, weave across the room, dodge a flung arm with a sloshing beer.  Where she wasn’t paying attention to the someone else talking to her, too.  N’tessa.  It had been N’tessa, and it was funny the way he could dredge up things.  Like the way it was how N’tessa was looking at her, all pinched in the brow, and reaching a hand out to her that told him that maybe his sorries should wait.

“--you want me to find your brother?  Maybe you should go home.”

“No, I’m-- Oh, hey,” Mira said, low and careful, as Phrixus got near.  Her back clung to the wall, her spine bent and leaning into a console table, one arm propping her weight like the bum leg of a chair.  Teeter-totter.  Her eyes, black with those feathery lashes, already seemed to have this problem of sliding away, and now they didn’t even focus really.

“Are you okay?” Phrixus asked.

N’tessa leaned toward him to be heard over the music. “I was just saying-- maybe we should get Forta--”

Mira tried a laugh. “I’m telling you, I’m--”

Her hand slipped, and the console table slipped too.  A lamp crashed to the floor, and a drink he hadn’t noticed she had cradled to her chest splashed everywhere.  Instinctively, he reached out and caught her elbow.  And he was balancing that tottering chair with the bum leg it felt like, as her knees sort of gave out.

“Shit,” she said, hair falling forward and concealing her face. “Sorry.”

Phrixus exchanged a look with N’tessa.  She turned away, but Mira reached out to grab her arm.

“No-- I’m good, really--” she said, her voice edging toward a whine. “I don’t wanna go.  Just--”

And then her legs really did give out, and her weight dragged down both N’tessa and Phrixus’s arms until they were sort of squatted over her sitting on the floor.  Her hands clung to them.  Her head wobbled as she looked up at the asari.

“Could you-- could you just get me a-- water?”

N’tessa looked at Mira.  Wobbling.  And she looked at Phrixus.  Phrixus shrugged.  N’tessa rolled her eyes and walked away.  People were talking, and he wasn’t even sure anyone had noticed the lamp breaking.  He looked back down at Mira, at her fingers clutching his forearm.  He squatted down beside her.  Her hair was a mess, all over the place.  And she was still clutching that nearly empty cup.

He reached for it. “Cutting you off.”

“What?  Noooo.”

Yeah, she was definitely whining now.  And though she tried her hardest, she lacked the coordination to resist his gentle extraction of the cup from her fingers.  Her head wobbled again, a great thick lock of brown curls falling forward.  And her spine seemed to curve inward, like one of those prickly whatchmacallits, the little animals that curled up in defense.

“Mira?  Are you falling asleep?” he asked. “Try and stay awake.”

She was silent for a long moment.  Long enough for him to wonder where N’tessa had gone.  And then she nearly scared him shitless when she jerked up and shoved her hair out of her face.  Her eyes shone in a way that made his stomach drop.

“Hey,” she said. “Do you like Aela?”

She could have just punched him in the face and surprised him just as much.

“ _What_ \--”

“Because if you do,” Mira went on, her clumsy words getting louder and slightly aggressive. “You should just-- you should just tell her already.”

“Mira, where in the world--”

“Because you know!  You know!” she rode over his voice, her arm splaying out and searching blindly for the console table that definitely wasn’t there anymore. “You know, people are just--  People could, you know, be like, _thinking_.  And that’s no good!  That’d--That’s definitely no good!”

“Look, I definitely, absolutely--”

“And you know!  You should just!  You really should!”

She glared at him.  She wasn’t listening to him, and he didn’t know… And.  Spirits, was she _crying_ now?  The lighting was terrible, but he could see the plump drops slipping down her cheeks.  Pulling her legs close to her chest, she rested her tottering head on her knees.

“And it would nice if everyone could be happy,” she murmured.  He realized he’d leaned forward so close to hear her, he could see the sparkle of tears in her lashes. “She’s my best friend.  So I want her to be happy.  I want you to… to be…”

She blinked at him, swallowing.

“Mira,” Phrixus said.  And, his hand probably shaking, he reached out and brushed loose locks out of her widening eyes. “I don’t like Aela.  Why do you think that?”

“You…” she started. “You two are always, like, on each other.  Fighting, but like, you know.”

“Okay, but that whole tug her fringe thing only works in preschool, you know.  That’s not really something I _like_.”

“But you-- you talked to her last week.  And didn’t talk to… And earlier you were talking to her, and you looked-- Phrixus, if you could just see the way you look…”

“Okay, okay,” he said, subvocals pitching embarrassingly. “Look.  I-- yes, I’ve been avoiding you, but that’s only because--”

He swore quietly.  He didn’t see a way out of this, and maybe if he could just say it, it would work out.  Somehow.  Because it was obvious plan A was turning into a total shitshow.

His mandibles flared despite his best intentions, and the effort to keep his gaze up became painful. “Mira.  It’s not Aela.  It’s you.  You’re the one.”

She gaped at him.  He wasn’t kidding or misremembering.  She actually gaped at him.  Like the mythical fish of the Presidium.  Then her jaw snapped shut, and she glared-- glared!-- at him.

“No,” she stated flatly.

“What?  What no?”

“No,” she repeated. “There’s no way you like-- just, no.”

His mandibles jerked. “And why, just exactly _why_ is this just a ‘no.’ Just a complete no.”

And her face got that way that reminded him of a balloon, all inflated, but now she was moving clumsily, trying to support the weight of her head. “ _Because_.  I’m human.  Just a boring human girl.  I’m so… stupid, and boring, and dumb, and--”

“And I’m a turian, and some nobody from a colony no one’s heard of, and I’m an asshole-- an ugly asshole, even--”

“ _What_!” she squawked, indignant. “You-- you’re drunk.”

He choked on a snort. “Yeah?  Is that so?” he drawled.

“Yeah!  Yeah, it is so.”

“Okay, well, maybe keep your eyes open when you say that to me.”

And then-- oh spirits, and then she took her hands, put them at her face, and used her fingers to force her heavy eyes open.  Her eyes were damp and bloodshot, and she was very determined about looking like a nut.  She couldn’t do it for long though, because they both ended up laughing helplessly.

Wheezing, Phrixus reached forward, and fumbled until he clasped onto her hand.  It was small and perfect, and felt like it should have been there ever since the night with the alley couple.

“Mira.  C’mon.  I’m sorry for avoiding you.  I was nervous.  And afraid.  But it’s definitely, completely, absolutely never will be Aela.”

She sniffed, blinking at him.  Her lips and throat worked on words like thorns, apparently, because they clenched and her fingers tightened around his.  And she spilled new tears.

“Yeah,” she finally managed tightly. “I don’t want you to ignore me.  Because…”

“Yeah,” he said.

And he was aware of the nearness of her face and the dark golden skin of her legs.  That is, until someone suddenly cleared their throat nearby.

Phrixus jerked away, letting go of her hand.  It was Forta.  He stood nearby with his brow raised at the sight of them sitting on the floor so close together.  His sister crying.  Phrixus’s heart jumped as he raced to think of something to say, explain.  Mira (probably completely unintentionally) saved him.

“Hi,” she said, a hand fumbling at her wet face.

“Hi,” Forta replied.

“I think-- I think we should, like-- go home,” she told him.

“We can do that.”

Forta reached for one of her arms, and Phrixus helped with the other as she stumbled to her feet.  With an arm over her shoulder, Forta helped ease her through the packed apartment.  He looked over his shoulder.

“You coming?” Forta asked him.

Right.  Spending the night with them.  What a great idea.  Phrixus nodded anyway, and followed after.

People were getting sloppy, not being as careful around the booze and furniture.  Phrixus didn’t want to know how Aela planned to clean up.  Because it probably involved him helping.  He and the twins slipped out, though, and somehow managed the four flights down.  Forta had Mira tucked under his arm, taking the steps carefully as she did her best to resist completely slipping to the ground again.  Phrixus walked behind, trying to slow down his racing brain.

The late night lights in Zakera washed the pedestrians in neon rainbows.  The bars tossed lines of bass out onto the street, and lines of people waited to plead with the bouncers.  No one looked at them twice.

“--what was that?” Forta was saying.

Phrixus brought his attention back to the two in front of him.

“I _said_ ,” Mira nearly shouted. “That I told Phrixus I liked him.”

Forta stopped, turned to look at him. “O-oh yeah?”

Phrixus stared back and his mandibles twitched.

“And he said he liked me too,” she continued, nearly dragging her brother’s jacket off of him. “I wanna go home.”

His eyes alight with something Phrixus didn’t care for, Forta coughed and turned back around. “Yeah, I know, I know.  We’re going home, okay?  Almost to the tram.”

Phrixus could die.  He could just find a hole right now and sit in it.  And die.

Forta spent the tram ride with Mira passed out against his shoulder while he whistled.   _Whistled_.  Torturing Phrixus, because he couldn’t think of something to say or find the quad to tell him to stop freaking whistling.  He didn’t even notice much about the Ryder place before he found himself deposited on a couch with some blankets and a pillow, staring up at a dark ceiling and alone with his brain hoping on incessant relay jumps.


	3. Chapter 3

“Mira, c’mon. It wasn’t that bad. Really. Just come out.”

“No! You don’t know– you weren’t even there.”

“I was there for part of it.”

A long pause. In which Mira was probably making a hilarious face or punching herself or something. Forta sighed again, and rolled his eyes (again). He stood at his sister’s door, jabbing half-heartedly at the panel that had been locked tight all morning. Leaning against the hallway wall, Phrixus shifted his weight. His mandibles twitched uneasily. He held a plate of levo eggs and a glass of water.

He felt strung out and tired, with only a few restless hours of sleep. When the sleep cycle had ended, Forta had come into the living room finally, and Phrixus got up with relief. They’d made breakfast and waited a couple hours for Mira to get up. When she didn’t show, they messaged her. When she didn’t answer, they got worried and found her door locked.

Phrixus nudged Forta and nodded to the door. Forta shrugged, threw up his hands, and backed away.

“Alright!” he said loudly. “I’m going, but if you starve to death in there I’m taking all your stuff! And I’m not telling Grandma you’re dead, so I can steal your five-credit birthday card.”

Mira didn’t reply, and Forta walked off down the hall.

Phrixus stood before her door for a long, silent moment. Then he gently tapped on the faux-wood inlay of the door with the edge of the plate in his hand.

“Mira? It’s me.”

Another drawn-out and super dramatic pause.

“Hey,” she finally said.

Phrixus exhaled, something in his carapace loosening. “Um, you know…”

The silence in the hall pressed down, the presence behind the door and the shadow in the gap at the bottom making his throat tight.

He tried again. “Hey, if you want to, well. You know, just forget about last night– that’s okay.”

The shadow at the gap twisted. He breathed into the pause and shifted his weight. His spurs were numb.

The door slid open a few centimeters. Mira looked up at him.

“I don’t want that,” she said quietly.

Phrixus blinked at her. His mandibles waved in vague little circles. He opened his mouth, closed it. Avoiding her wide eyes and her flushed face, he looked down.

“Here,” he muttered. He pushed the plate of eggs and the water toward her. “You’re probably dehydrated.”

“Thanks,” she said.

They looked at each other until Phrixus turned away with a cough. “Okay, well. I gotta go– There’s a thing– anyway, see you later?”

She nodded. “Yeah.”

He scratched his neck, lingered a touch too long, and then he nodded as he went down the hall.

“Wait.”

He stopped and looked back at her peeking around the edge of her door.

“You don’t want that right? To forget…”

“No,” he said.

She blinked, biting her lip. “Oh. That’s good. Uh, call me?”

“Yeah.”

He left the Ryder apartment, ignoring Forta’s stupid face, and only half-way trying to stop the grin he wore down the street and all along the tram ride home.

-

He will never understand how news spread so quickly. But by the time he went back to school, everyone seemed to know that he and Mira were a Couple™. Which was funny, because the last time he checked, he certainly didn’t know that, or Mira either. Or maybe they did? Well, they talked the evening before, after she napped and got rid of her headache (and they were both significantly less nervous). They made plans to hang out, but– couple? Boyfriend, girlfriend? What? Is that what happened?

The teasing was good-natured, and his own good mood prevented him getting all worked up and prickly as usual. He snapped out the sarcastic returns, but didn’t put any heat in it. Aela didn’t even get under his carapace. Because she was partly to thank for the whole situation. Mira didn’t seem to mind the teasing either, and seemed less embarrassed.

Which was good.

Yeah. It was…

Good.

And then, between programming and galactic history, in a flash that floored him and even later, when he remembered it would still wind him a little– before leaving for her own class, Mira stopped him and tugged sharply on his shirt to get him to bend down and… She tapped her forehead against his. The bridges of their noses brushed. Just like that. Extracting his brain as she skipped away (she wasn’t skipping, more like half-running in giddy horror at her own moxy). But still. He couldn’t think and it wasn’t until someone shoved at him that he got moving again.

Yeah. So that happened, then.

-

“–just don’t know what I’m supposed to say to him. ‘Oh, the reason it didn’t get filed is because you’re a lazy idiot?’ You know his ego is basically like a baby hanar. Can’t sneeze at it without him crying bloody-murder.”

“Dunno, hun. Kill him?”

“That’s not a solution. That’s an indulgence.”

“Well, I just love to indulge my honey-wunny–”

“Awww,” Calix crooned and leaned over the salad and the casserole to trade a face-caress with Domera. Both of them making stupid noises.

Phrixus silently kept eating, thinking. About a nose brushing his. She was so short, how did she even…

He realized they were looking at him.

“What?” he asked around a mouthful.

“One, gross,” Calix said, wrinkling her nose. “Two, hello? No ridiculous groaning if we even think about touching each other? Are you feeling okay?”

“Do you need to talk?” Domera jumped on. “Is someone bullying you? Who is it? We’ll write them a stiff letter.”

Phrixus swallowed his food, pushing casserole around his plate with his fork. He worked his mandibles for a pause while he thought, digging up the words.

“Uh,” he said. “What would you guys say if I was dating a human girl?”

Forks clattered onto plates, glancing off onto the table and flicking little dressing splatters everywhere. Calix and Domera leaned forward, staring at him. He kept his face carefully neutral.

“Are– are you saying you have a girlfriend?” Domera asked.

He glanced away. “I mean. Yeah.”

“What! Honey, that’s great!”

“Wait- waitwaitwait. Human? Do you mean that Ryder girl?”

“Yeah–”

“Spirits! She’s so cute!”

“Wait, hold on, wait!”

Domera leaped up and went to the fridge, reaching over the top and fumbling all the boxes of cereal and crackers.

“Where are you hiding that cake? We have to have cake!” she called.

“To the left– yes! There!” Calix said “Oh! Should we go get ice cream? Dom, are there candles?”

“Freaking–” Phrixus exhaled loudly. “Would you two quit it?”

“Hush, no one asked you.”

“Yeah. Phrixus Jaril, if you think we’re not going to celebrate every milestone of your life, you are obviously defective and we should take you back to the sperm bank.”

“You–”

“Oh!” Domera exclaimed, putting a half-mauled cake down on the dinner table. She leaned into the table, staring at Phrixus. “You’ll tell us when you lose your virginity, right?”

Phrixus threw down his fork. “I’m going to my room.”

“Aww, c’mooon–”

“Nope.”

He ended up barricading himself in his room, until they smoked him out by blowing wafts of (slightly stale) cake scent underneath the door. The three of them huddled in the floor of his little bedroom with their little plates of cake. He promised to bring Mira over at some point, and no, he didn’t know either of her parents’ numbers or e-mails. He kicked them out when they started taking pictures.

All things considered, it could have gone worse. They could have _actually_ put candles on the cake, and like. _Sung_. Spirits.

-

Shortly after, a new file appeared in the apartment’s communal data library. It was unlocked, and labeled ‘DEFINITELY NOT THE LIQUOR CABINET’S PASSCODE.’ Inside were a bunch of infographics and e-pamphlets about safe intercourse between turians and humans. And Phrixus would never, ever, ever (not even on pain of torture) admit to reading all those files.

But that was getting way, _way_ ahead of things.

Or that was probably his moms’ intentions. You learn about that stuff way before you need it. Maybe if he had kids himself he’d know.

Anyway.

Those first bits after they started dating would always be cloaked in this, like, painfully sweet filter. 

Once, he went to an in-theater feature of _Fleet and Flotilla_ where you have to dress up, but they serve real alcohol, so it wasn’t terrible. (But the choice in going certainly hadn’t been his.) And when it got to the part at the end, where they separate forever– he didn’t know what came over him. He really never was much for this sappy crap. But he sat, staring at the screen, seeing some fictional bittersweet romance meant to give catharsis, and all he could think about was trading face caresses and kisses with Mira Ryder in between classes. Behind the school’s auxiliary buildings, touching her hair.

The way she laughed as they shared cheap street food and he made some stupid, definitely not as funny as she was making it comment. Sitting on a bench after a ‘oooh-romantic’ walk through the Presidium, playing with each other’s fingers. Hanging around Aela’s, Aela and Forta busy with some video game, and he and Mira sprawled out watching them, her fingers curiously exploring his spurs. The one time they found themselves alone at his place (despite his moms’ best efforts) and they ended up making out until they were both very frustrated, and very confused.

He so often tended to be a sad drunk, and his head would sometimes turn back to those first bits then.

And actually, the more he thought about it, his moms had probably been onto something. Because along with those first bits, things progressed quickly. They didn’t talk about the reason why. They probably didn’t even admit it to themselves, because to admit it would be to admit the approaching danger of an end. Their school was already prepping the turian students for their departure, giving them the study materials for their final evaluations which would be sent on to their bootcamps for placements.

But to admit that they were aware of, and afraid of, that change would be to maybe admit that their relationship wasn’t entirely based on feeling. That maybe they were rushing out of fear.

At the time, he definitely and vehemently refused such an idea. Mira made his stomach flutter, she made him feel good and better, and he wanted to protect her and make her laugh. But later, he would wonder. It didn’t make that painfully sweet filter disappear or anything. Maybe it added to that nostalgia; that with all those innocent and tender feelings of curiosity and fondness, there was also an urgency, an intensity. Everything was changing and they were just trying to keep up.

Also they were teenagers, so of-freaking-course his moms made a sex ed data file for him.

-

“So vacation is next week,” Mira said.

“Yeah,” Phrixus replied.

He was only halfway listening. They were walking back to the tram station after spending the evening at his apartment; they’d baked this like fudgy turian dessert with tons of chocolate with Domera. They’d suited up Mira with these ridiculous long and yellow protective gloves, and a pair of safety goggles. She still had a red outline where the goggles had dug into her face. Phrixus considered the bonding time a success: Mom had been impressed with Mira’s curiosity about dextro food, and had only made one comment about the safety gear and ‘protection.’

As curfew approached, he’d shuffled Mira out with a minimal amount of Domera’s cooing about their holding hands. He’d let go about halfway, though, to message Forta about leaving for the tram.

“–can come over, because, you know, Dad’s on assignment and Mom’ll be working and Forta won’t be a problem or anything…”

He retook her hand and nodded. “Sure.”

He glanced at her, and paused at the look she gave him, brows raised and eyes a little wide. He wasn’t sure what to make of that, and they were near the tram station, so he just looked up and squeezed her hand a little. And then– what she said hit him and he dropped her hand like one of those fake retrograded pistols from the Arena that didn’t use thermal clips. Overheated.

He stared at her, and she stared back at him. Phrixus’s head whipped around to stare at the people around them. No one was paying them a bit of attention, but he was terrified that the loose crowd was hanging on to their every word. He picked up her hand again, tugging her off to the side of the lane underneath the awning of a closed store.

“Feel free to– you know, whatever if I’m way off, but–” Phrixus said, low and probably too fast. “But, are you saying you want to hang out or– or…”

Mira looked up at him. She was biting her lip, her eyes shifting away and back to him. Away and back.

So they’d gotten the face caress and the kiss down to a near routine (if a routine was meant to cause heart palpitations and flushed cheeks and splayed mandibles on every occurrence). Figuring out the kiss had been… something. His lips didn’t work the way hers did, or his tongue, and the nearness of it, the warmth and the… well. It was. Something. And she didn’t have mandibles, but she’d do this thing where– And there was the time they’d ditched everyone in the middle of a match and their hands had roamed. And then N’tessa’s last week (vids and beer) and their hands had _really_ roamed–

Well.

To say he wasn’t curious, that he didn’t want that, would be a damning lie. He still remembered, at least a couple times a week, how that alley couple had fit together. And he’d done his own, well, _research_.

But it was just. Uh. A big deal, and like…

They were still holding hands, and Mira squeezed tightly, bringing him back down from orbit. She was looking at him, and then her eyes darted down. But she squeezed his hand and inhaled sharply.

“Well,” she started. “I mean. Yeah, that’s kind of what I… meant. I mean, I’ve never–”

“I haven’t,” Phrixus cut in sharply, clutching at her hand. “Either…”

Looking down, she bit her lip against a smile. She shook her head.

“I guess we both already knew that,” she said.

“I guess.”

He ran a finger over the back of her hand; you could feel the delicate bones there. He cleared his throat, staring at his own hand on hers. He was having a hard time looking at her, too.

He tried again. “But– you want… with me?”

“Yeah,” she said softly. “If you do.”

“Yeah,” he said. “If you do, yeah.”

She rocked back on her heels, an after-image of a smile floating around her face. The false sky was really turning black. The fluorescent light in the awning above them cast each of them in stark relief. She burst out a snort, and started giggling. He did, too. Then he glanced over his shoulder at the people (still ignoring them) walking to their homes or the tram station. He looked back at her, met her gaze, and shuffled her backward into the corner where the shop met its neighbor.

She looked up with her eyes glittering until he stooped into her, pressing their not-meant-to-be-yet-absolutely-meant-to-be lips together. Her arms flew up to cradle around the back of his neck. His hand found the steep curve of the small of her back, straining with the effort to reach him. She was on tippy-toes, he knew.

They parted, wedged into the corner and a breath apart.

“Um,” she said. “I should… probably go– the tram…”

“Right,” he said.

He backed them out of the corner, hands probably permanently glued together now. They resumed their walk back toward the station. The first part of their walk seemed a thousand years ago, before their world-shattering commitment.

When she got on the tram, she sat, and turned to look out the window at him standing on the platform. They waved. And he spent a good long while watching the tram’s taillights disappear through the district.

-

He wasn’t even a fraction of the way home before he started worrying.

He opened his omnitool.

[phrixus] hey

[mira] hi?

[mira] whats up

[phrixus] did you say your parents will both be gone

[mira] yeah

He paused for a long time, staring at empty air. He’d been to the Ryder place a couple times now. Met her mom, Ellen a couple times. She seemed nice, but busy. She was some kind of big deal scientist with human biotics. The dad, Alec, he’d only met the once. Polite, but kind of gruff. Mira hadn’t been kidding about him being military. One of the first through Relay 314, had been there at Shanxi. Phrixus, if he were being truthful, was nervous that her dad didn’t like him, didn’t like the fact that he was turian.

He didn’t care to imagine being caught with Mira by either of them.

[mira] phri?

[mira] it’s cool if you changed your mind

[phrixus] no

[phrixus] i still

[phrixus] you know

[phrixus] but if you change your mind thats completely fine

[mira] i know

[mira] u okay tho

[phrixus] yeah just theres stuff we have to get

[phrixus] ill take care of it

[mira] i can help

[phrixus] no let me

[mira] if you want

[mira] are you home yet

[phrixus] no

[mira] well be safe

[mira] domera’s probably waiting

[phrixus] yeah

[mira] night

[phrixus] night


	4. Chapter 4

Going back to that feature presentation of _Fleet and Flotilla_. He’d always kinda thought Bellicus and Shalei were full of shit. All of that agony, all of that fretting– how could that bind people together forever? You know, emotionally. In their hearts if you were feeling cheesy. And the singing– spirits.

That’s not what it was with Mira. It was the greasy smoke of the shadier wards, where all the fun stuff happened. It was the teasing, the small gestures that sparked the excited churn in his stomach. It was mortifying embarrassment and the giggling as they soldiered through the embarrassment. It was accidentally bumping heads and teeth and the slime of spit as they miscalculated their amorous endeavors. It was nearly giving himself a stroke while steeling himself to procure lube and condoms and antihistamines. It was the agonizing boners he popped just from extranet searches and his, well, _thinking_.

He’s heard other first time stories since, and he doesn’t get the whole thing where it was rushed and over-hyped and ultimately disappointing. Because his ending up being– well, it ending up being what it ended up being, but he still will always think of it as something that Bellicus and Shalei could never touch.Anyway, he got a message from Forta the day before he and Mira planned to meet.

_Hey. Listen, you don’t have to reply to this. It’s kind of awkward as it is for me to send. And I don’t want to be that guy that gets into anyone’s business. But I kinda have an idea that things are happening, and I just want you to know that if something happens or anyone needs help, I can totally be there, zero judgment. I would appreciate all parties being clothed, but I’ll take what I can get. Anyway. Happy Loss of Virginity Day!_

Phrixus had sworn, quietly and vehemently. Thank spirits he’d been in his room and away from his moms’ overly keen ears. Thank spirits he was on break and technically didn’t have to see Forta for another week. Even though he probably would. Shit, she’d probably told Aela, too.

Well. It’s not like he had anything to be ashamed of. He was just… embarrassed.

There was a reason he used sarcasm to deal with people. A reason his default mode was to be a prickly, sullen idiot. But there was also a reason why he could never be that way to Mira. He had so much difficulty being open and honest, but it was almost… easy with her.

So there was no way he could let it change the way he felt about tomorrow. All of this openness would be character-building. Or something.

He walked to the station, rode the tram, and walked to her place while silently vacillating between running the fuck away and running pell-mell all the way there. His head cycled furiously while he clutched at the strap of his bag slung over his shoulder.

“Hey,” she said, opening the door for him.

“Hey,” he said.

As he moved past her, he stepped through a clean floral scent floating around her. And that realization that she’d showered, that she’d prepared too, gut-punched him and galvanized his nerves by like a million.

The Ryder apartment was in Quet Ward, in a nice district with like, public gardens and stuff, and no dirty alleys with twitchy hallex pushers. At least as far as he’d seen. With a kitchen, living room, three bedrooms and two baths, the place closer resembled the old house on Niiet than his flat now. The apartment wasn’t exactly spotless; the remains of a breakfast littered the kitchen counters and table, and large stacks of files sat on nearly every surface, along with datapads and some portable projectors with floating holograms here and there. One was particularly mesmerising with a vivid blue sphere and enigmatic data reads looping around it.

“My parents don’t really bring their work home,” Mira said, looking at him. “It’s more like ‘home’ sometimes happens while they’re working.”

He turned to her.

He hadn’t dressed up or anything; neither had she, just shorts and a shirt and her hair loose. It seemed about right. It was just them. Just Mira and Phrixus. Not that it wasn’t important, but you know. She was leaning against the kitchen counter, looking at him as he looked around. Was he stalling? Maybe.

Now that he thought about it, though, Mira and Forta didn’t talk too much about their parents. Phrixus certainly complained enough about his moms and how annoying they could be. Except he didn’t really mean it. But when the twins talked about their parents, it was mostly to say they’d stayed up late talking to their mom after running into her doing some midnight research and now they just wanted to sleep through morning classes. Or their dad was finally home for a while, and they’d have to skip the Arena matches to sit through some painfully awkward family dinners.

Mira was looking at him, and not looking at him, gaze gradually shifting away the longer he stayed silent. He set down his bag and went over to the counter, her standing on the kitchen side and him on the living room side. Her hand rested on the countertop, and he covered it with his own.

“Hey,” he said. “You know if–”

“Yeah,” she interrupted him. “I know. We’ve had a while to think, and I still want to. If you do.”

“Yeah. I mean, I do.”

The hand underneath his twisted around and she entwined her fingers with his. Her round face, with its square jaw and its large eyes, turned up toward him and offered a small smile. How the hell he could have ever found it difficult to read her, he didn’t know. Because the nerves and the warmth in her expression were so obvious.

“So. So, Phrixus Jaril,” she exhaled. “You’re a great person. And I like you. And I trust you. So…”

He flicked his mandibles. “Yeah. I– you’re amazing, and sweet, and I trust you, too…”

He looked down, a little overwhelmed with the tightness in his chest and throat and the heat flashing behind his crest.

Mira straightened and tugged on his hand. “Sooo, c’mon?”

She moved in the direction of the hall.

“Wait,” he said.

He went to his bag and dug until he pulled out a couple small boxes. He put them down on the counter, and started opening one. Mira reached for the other one to look at the back.

“Oh, right,” she stated. “Antihistamines.”

“Not presuming anything, but it’s better–”

“Yeah. Anaphylactic shock’s no joke.”

They met each other’s eyes and burst into giggles. Oh, spirits. All of this was too much. They fiddled with their little boxes of tablets.

Mira turned hers over. “Oh, these aren’t the ones for– you know. This.”

He looked at her. “You mean, there’s actually…?”

“Yeah,” she said, glancing at him with a look that said ‘told you I should’ve helped.’

She pulled out the little sheet of sealed tablets. “Well. It should be fine. Maybe… take a few more just in case?”

“Yeah,” he said, popping out a few more himself.

She poured them each a glass of water, fingers fumbling a little as she put them down on the counter.

“Sooo… Forta’s gone?”

Mira looked at him, tucking a strand of hair away and tucking her chin down. “You really wanna talk about that?

She stepped closer and took his hand again. He took the other one, too. And they stood close, toe to toe.

“I guess not,” he stated.

They studied each other, and in that study they seemed to find something– maybe not stilling the nerves or banishing them.  They still had the wild impulses to giggle, but it was like, yes, they shared the exact same feeling. And really, how many times does that happen in the universe? Feeling the exact same way as the person beside you.

They gently tapped foreheads, rotating the point of contact down to feel their shared skin and brush lips.

She led him to her room, him grabbing his bag along the way.

The walls were painted in a pale peach-y, rose-y color, and the bed resembled a cloud of white down and lavender pillows. She had a little desk with floor cushions and various stuffed animals arranged around a quiet terminal. Photos cycled through several of those little wall monitors arranged in an artfully haphazard pattern. Her school things were scattered about. He’d been here a few times, and he’d thought about this so many more times. It was real and unreal. That painfully sweet filter.

In that midday quiet, Phrixus learned who Mira Ryder was, and she him. It’s not that sexual intimacy is the be-all, end-all of knowing someone, or that it was the given endgame of emotional intimacy. You didn’t have to sleep with someone to know them. But sometimes– when it’s the scariest and ends up lingering with you longest– sometimes it’s an act of the utmost vulnerability.

But that’s all hindsight.

At the time, it was a lot of giggling and discovery and finding out that, no, vids and infograms aren’t going to tell you everything, certainly won’t tell you anything about individual needs or desires. And, nothing had prepared him for the shifts in gravity, the shifts in his focus that made even the most miniscule parts of her profound. The way his gaze locked and his head went both fuzzy and razor sharp. The way everything down to the strange microscopic down of her skin had afterimages–

“Wait,” Phrixus struggled to say, except he did say it, didn’t he?

Mira looked up at him, paused and eyes wide and black. She licked her lips.

“Wait,” he said again, even though nothing was happening. “Wait.”

And it seemed to take years and years (years in which he couldn’t do anything but watch), but she lifted a hand and placed it against his jaw, along his mandible.

“How many of those tablets did we take?” he asked. It felt like he was pulling his words from a deep pit that fell through to the other side of the the planet– the Citadel. How many sides did the Citadel have?

She kept staring at him, eyes sort-of vibrating. But she finally seemed to find her tongue and a small whisper. “Are we high?”

Despite the great effort it took and the cloying attraction of just staring at her face, he pulled away from her.

“How many milligrams were they?” he said.

For what felt like forever, they hissed to each other about going out and checking those boxes still sitting on the counter, but they were both afraid for unknown reasons. And, they couldn’t seem to muster the compulsion to get dressed, or the resistance to the draw of simply staring at each other, at the room’s objects. A suggestion was made to call someone. Mira got upset, holding her face and going ‘noooooo.’ Whisper soft. They were both whispering intensely.

And staring up at the ceiling. They were on their backs, staring at the faux-panelling of the ceiling and the yawning vent in the corner.

And then, several yawns of the vent later, Mira was turned toward him and whispering.

“But, I mean, are you– okay? We didn’t…”

He exerted every tendon and fiber of muscle in his neck to turn and look at her. “Are you?”

She blinked, and then burst into a hissing laugh, using a hand to stifle it ineffectively. “Not really.”

He laughed, too. He wiggled closer to her, across the fascinating weave of her sheets.

“I don’t really want to– not like this,” he said. “But there’s always a next time.”

Hair swirling underneath her face, she smiled. “Yeah. That’s right, isn’t it?”

-

It turned out that they came down after a few hours: far less time than it had felt like then. And it also turned out that their tablets had been fast-acting, how-powered antihistamines with twice the dosage than he thought they’d had. Honestly, how the hell was it legal for him, a kid, to even walk out of the pharmacy with those things?

But they both managed to get their shit together enough to get dressed and call Forta, so that he could come home and they could play video games or something. He gave them funny looks when he walked through the door, but didn’t say anything. They wasted the evening away, and eventually went out to get dinner at a fast-food place. Things were… normal. Except he and Mira couldn’t look at each other without turning into gooey-eyed messes.

It had Forta rolling his eyes, but in a rare act of charity he refrained from commenting.

Things afterward were, well. Normal. It’s not like they were suddenly different people, reborn by baptism of cherry-popping. It’s just– now they knew something new about themselves. About each other.

And then they kept finding out things about each other, because, like Phrixus had said, there was a next time. And times after the next time.

And as these times multiplied, if Phrixus thought he had _thought_ a lot about her before, it didn’t compare to how his head lingered in her bedroom during the middle of the day, alone at night. How he caught himself staring at her at inopportune times, as if he was still stuck there staring at the ceiling and floating on white down. His neediness surprised him. It was almost like she’d stripped some power from him, tugged and tied him to her.

But the feeling was mutual. She lingered with him before and after classes. Called him every night if he didn’t first. Messaged him so much it felt like breathing. If she was nervous before, she was a giggly mess about him after.

His moms teased him, offered to buy him a seeing-eye bot on account of him blundering around with hearts in his eyes all the time. Aela started complaining about him stealing her best friend.

Neither he nor Mira cared much.

-

“I don’t know– think they’ll like this?” Calix complained, turning the bottle over in her hand. “What is it, sha– shaar–”

“It’s fine,” Phrixus said flatly.

Domera turned to eye him. “And how do _you_ know, huh?”

“I don’t, just– you two are making me nervous.”

Calix and Domera gave each other a look around him.

Quet Ward was mostly quiet. A few families walking to the neighborhood restaurants, or people just finishing their shift and getting home. Ellen Ryder had invited them all over for dinner, saying it was high time they got together. Calix and Domera had cheerfully agreed. They’d met Ellen already, and apparently messaged each other sometimes (the contents of these messages Phrixus was loathe to ever, ever learn). But they hadn’t spoken to Alec yet. And he was home, so perfect timing, right?

Calix hip-bumped him. “Oh, don’t worry. It’ll be fine. We’ll be on our best behavior, right, Dom?”

“Right. We won’t even get drunk,” Domera said, waving the second and dextro bottle of wine at him.

“That’s reassuring,” he stated, mandibles flicking.

His moms rolled their eyes. They reached the right building and the doorman nodded at them.

In the elevator, Domera leaned against the rail with a dangerous look in her eye. “So? Any stories we need to get straight before we go in?”

“What do you mean?” he said, staring very hard at the flashing floor numbers above the door.

“Oh, I dunno. Any clandestine meetings we need to cover for you? Illicit rendezvous?”

“Could you not make it sound like a cheap uniform-ripper?” he said.

Calix and Domera both started giggling, elbowing each other.

“You think he’ll be sitting outside the door with a shotgun?” Calix asked.

“We don’t know you anymore if he is,” Domera told Phrixus.

The elevator ting’ed politely and the silent doors slid open. Domera made a show of sticking her head out into the hall and looking both ways.

“Nope, all clear,” she announced.

Phrixus strode around her. “Great.”

The apartment wasn’t that far down the hall, so he had very little time in which to force down the flutter of his heart and stomach. He shouldn’t be so worried; it was just a dinner, his moms were there, Mira and Forta were there, and he knew Ellen. But still. Something about the whole thing was too formal. Something like an essential, vital to the rest of his life test.

“–honestly, Phrixus, don’t worry,” Calix was saying. “You’re a handsome, smart young man. You’re fine. Nothing to sweat over.”

He stopped at the Ryders’ door and glanced at her, not replying. He looked away, feeling if anything _more_ queasy with all that praise. He tapped at the door’s panel to ring their bell, the bright little melody muffled by metal and faux-paneling walls.

“And anyway,” Domera said. “At least he can’t get her pregnant.”

Phrixus whirled and hissed, horrified. “ _Spirits, Mom_.”

“What? It’s true–”

The door whipped open. “Hi!”

Mira stood in the doorway, smiling at them. She wore an apron, obviously used recently, and her hair up in its long, swinging ponytail.

“Hi, honey!” Domera said, nudging Phrixus out of the way to swoop in for a hug.

Calix cut him off, too, claiming her own hug after Domera’s. “Look at you, looking adorable.”

“Oh, stop,” Mira laughed.

Released from his moms’ clutches, she sank back down from her tippy-toes to look at him. Still smiling, she reached up to tug at his shirt and bring him down for a peck on the cheek. And that made things a little better, as he gazed down at her.

“Hi, you all look well!”

And he forced himself to look up as Ellen Ryder appeared in the entryway. She gestured further into the apartment.

She smiled. “Come on in. We just put the pie in, but everything else is ready. We just need to set the table.”

She traded cheek kisses with Domera and Calix, trading compliments and small talk. They were all herded in out of the hall, and in the living room Alec Ryder stood to greet them. Frankly, Phrixus could read the twins pretty well now, but he still had a hard time differentiating aliens he didn’t know well. Even so, he was pretty sure that Forta resembled his dad to a bizarre degree. The square jaw, the round nose, the sharp cheekbones– just with some age and scarring to go along with. And the whole family was some shade of golden brown.

Phrixus had thought (fretted) about this a lot, and had decided to go the safe route.

He reached his hand forward. “Sir.”

Alec Ryder paused, not letting a smidgen if his inner thoughts onto his face. The women around them quieted, tittering. Which Phrixus stubbornly ignored. Alec made a little cough (hiding a smile), and shook Phrixus’s hand.

“Good to see you again. Phrixus,” Alec said.

“I’m here, too,” Forta called from his sprawl on the couch. He waved at them.

At his shoulder, Mira pushed at him a little, breaking his handshake with her father. “Okay, that’s done. You gonna be okay with the rest, Mom?”

Her hand bunched in his shirt and started dragging him away before Ellen could reply. Phrixus followed after Mira walking them to the inner hall and whipping her apron over her head, throwing it on the back of a chair.

“Yes, I’ll be fine,” Ellen called after them, a smile in her voice.

“We’ll help,” Domera said.

“Oh, no! You’re guests, just sit and let’s get you some wine– Mira! Doors open!”

In the hall, Mira stopped hustling Phrixus, grinned and rolled her eyes at his gaze.

“I know!” she called back to her mother.

They escaped into her room before any more instructions could be given, leaving the door open. The chatter between Ellen and his moms drifted in.

“Everything smells so good.”

“I have a confession. I didn’t really do much; just followed what Mira told me to do.”

“She’s so good at this sort of thing.”

“I know. I don’t know where she got it from, because it definitely wasn’t me.”

Mira poked him. “Hey. You okay? You look worried.”

He looked down at her, pulled her a step closer. “I’m not worried.”

She snuck her arms around his waist, squeezing, and rested her chin on his chest. “Oh yeah? So all that up there is just a thing your face does?”

He returned the hug, and glanced over his shoulder. Satisfied with the empty door and the light chatter down the hall, he went back to her and her little smile, and bent to tap their foreheads.

“I’m not worried.”

“Yeah, yeah. Tough guy. Jeez, you– Dad likes you.”

He flicked his mandibles. “How can you tell?”

“Hmm,” she hummed, rubbing the tip of her nose against his collar with twinkling eyes. “Oh, I dunno. You’re cute.”

He wrinkled his nose. “I’m not–”

“Forta, can you check on them?”

Ellen was speaking in an obviously raised voice. Giving them a warning.

“I’m busy.”

“ _Forta_.”

“Alright, alright,” Forta sighed dramatically. And then his voice raised obviously, too. “I’m getting up now! I’m walking through the living room! Coming down the hall!”

By the time he’d gotten to the doorway, Mira was sitting at her terminal and Phrixus was laid out across the room on the bed, omnitool out. Forta stuck his head in, looked at them, and smirked.

“Nice,” he said.

Mira chucked a handy stuffed animal at his head. “Shut up, dweeb.”

He dodged it easily. “Whatever. Dinner’s ready.”

Ellen, Domera, and Calix took the conversation at the table in hand: some light surface discussion of their jobs, how do you pronounce the name of that human wine anyway, and my, how delicious everything was. When Mira got flustered at the compliment, Phrixus tapped her heel with his own under the table. And Alec finally made some comment about how Mira’s math and science grades going up recently, wasn’t that funny?

He glanced away from Mira and Phrixus squirming in their seats to Forta, twirling a fork at him. “Maybe you need to follow that example?”

“Yeah, don’t think I’m gonna go dating my sister’s boyfriend,” he drawled.

Alec rolled his eyes, and turned to Calix and Domera. “Point is, your son’s been a good influence.”

Domera laughed, reaching across the table to pat Phrixus on the head. “He’s a good little egg.”

As his mom’s hand lifted away from his eyes, he saw Forta and Mira exchange a look. They simultaneously looked down to their plates.

The discussion turned political, to the rising likelihood of humanity becoming a council species and how that would upset the power balances with the other non-council species. Dessert came around: a pie for the dextros, ice cream for the levos. Then a nightcap, some last chatter, and farewells were made. Calix and Domera tottered out the hall, very clearly buzzed. Well. They had only promised to not get drunk, anyway.

Mira walked them down the hall, and his moms very pointedly went ahead to wait for the elevator, ignoring them.

He took her hands. “You okay? You’ve been quiet.”

She gave him a thin smile and shrugged. Staying quiet, she swung his hands, rocking back on her heels. He just studied her, not saying anything either. The elevator pinged, and Mira straightened, and he bent so that she could brush her lips lightly at his cheek.

“See you tomorrow?” she said.

“See you,” he said, joining his tittering mothers in the elevator.

Mira stood there as the doors slid closed, waving.


	5. Chapter 5

They say time gives perspective, and they’re right. If he’s learned anything from Mira, it’s that he can be an insensitive prick. Thick-headed. That emotional support is a two-way street, and he needs to make the extra effort on his side, because it’s clear that his nav system is faulty.

Time also allowed him to cool his head over Aela. They’ve talked since, and have mutually agreed they kind of hate each other, but not _hate_ hate each other. And they agreed that they both fucked things up royally. But they definitely didn’t see that at the time.

“You gonna sign up or not, kid?”

The asari matron that worked the school office front desk with an iron fist glared at him. She pointed up at the wall clock, the digits winding down the day.

“You’re pushing it you know?” she said. “We told you all by the end of today.”

“Yeah, I know,” Phrixus said. He kept the snap out of his voice; no one screwed with the office workers unless they wanted a straight kick into in-school suspension.

She continued to glare at him, then snorted and went back to her terminal.

He really was pushing it, but even so, he had twenty minutes until ‘end of day.’ The clock up there said so.

He’d done his best to ignore the approaching deadline. But it had crept up on him, deliberately and inevitably. The sheet on the datapad in front of him, had been scrawled on by every one of the turians in his class. It was for time slots for the final evaluation exam before bootcamp assignments. And all of the later exam spots, that gave more time for studying, were already taken. He had literally waited until the last minute, so serves him right.

But he hated the reminder. He didn’t want to go. Sure, probably no one else did, either, but still… He thought about Mira, about everything, and his hand hovered over the datapad with the stylus.

And then, he tucked his mandibles, eyes squinting. He scrolled through the names, and then scrolled again. Unease rose in his stomach. Quickly, he signed his name and tapped at his omnitool. He messaged Aela, and when she didn’t immediately reply, he called her. And called her again after she didn’t pick up the first time.

“What?” she asked, finally answering.

“You’re not on the exam list,” Phrixus told her smugly. “Forget did you? Well, I’m a nice guy, and I’m here, so I’ll do it for you.”

“Oh,” she stated flatly. “Right. That.”

“There’s only spots in one or two–”

“Listen, Jaril. Don’t worry about it.”

His eyes narrowed. “What? There’s only like ten minutes until they take it up.”

“I said don’t worry about it, alright?” her voice got sharp.

“Spirits, fine,” Phrixus spat. He flipped his omnitool off. The matron at the desk was completely ignoring him.

He shouldered his bag and left the office, answering the message he’d gotten from Mira while in there. They had plans to go back to his place for the afternoon. And then tomorrow was Saturday: everyone was going to Silversun, and he and Mira had been avoiding the rest of the group for so long that they were long overdue for a match at the Arena. They were probably rusty.

She was waiting for him at the school gate. Looking up at him, she reached for his hand.

“Did you sign up?” she asked.

He squeezed her fingers. “Yeah.”

The curve of her face turned down, to spare him from the hurt sitting underneath her surface. He looked down at her, people passing them on their way out. His throat tightened. And he’ll later realize what a mistake he made next, by taking her back to his room and kissing her instead of talking. Now they weren’t screwing up the dose of antihistamine; they were getting confused about the difference between physical closeness and intimacy.

She’d started smoking since N’tessa’s older sister let a few of them over for a house party. Older sister thought Mira was ‘sweet’ and given her a pack; it was a human thing, nearly an extinct habit on Earth, but still had a kind of edge among colonists and spacers. Edge. Right. Mira probably wasn’t even aware why it attracted her.

They sat in bed through that silent afternoon, quietly reading about the different bootcamps throughout Hierarchy space surrounded by a bitter pall coming off white smoke. He told her about Aela’s weirdness.

Mira frowned, head nestled against his side. “She didn’t sign up? That’s– I dunno. She didn’t say anything to me.”

He kept scrolling through his omnitool. “Hmm.”

“Ask her tomorrow or something,” she said.

Cool air slipped in between them as she sat up. The smooth expanse of her back was turned to him, curls straggling down her spine. You could see the shapes of a few vertebrae: that was how thin and delicate human skin was. She shifted to tap ashes into a disposable cup, and a sliver of jaw and cheek turned toward him.  A sinuous sliver that sunk into his head.

“It’s getting late,” she said.

He turned off his omnitool. “I’ll walk you to the station.”

“‘Kay.”

That Saturday, the usual group met up in Silversun. Phrixus had long since mastered all of the faux guns and grenades the Arena had on hand. He wasn’t much for tech or melee, and he had never shown signs of developing biotics. But guns, he could do. Tactical thinking, he could do. Mira’d gotten in the habit of shooting from increasingly long distances; apparently her dad was talking about getting her a real rifle soon. And Forta and Aela were their usual selves, leading the charge and making nuisances of themselves.

They went to Aela’s afterward. General Quentius and his wife were yet again on Palaven, for important Hierarchy something or other, leaving their teenage daughter with the run of their Presidium mansion. Beer was produced, the poolhouse ended up soaked up to the walls by a series of canonballs, and a mess was made in the kitchen once people started jonesing. Phrixus had been doing his best to just relax and forget about tomorrow, and the tomorrows after tomorrow. But as he sat in her massive living room, with Forta beside him getting increasingly blitzed (his own head swam with pleasant warmth) and Aela and Mira across from them, he remembered.

“Aela,” he half-shouted over the music.

“What,” she said, turning from Mira.

He grinned and leaned forward. “You just planning on skipping bootcamp, or what?”

Aela’s blue eyes roved over him, the dark green line of her markings flexing as her mandibles flexed. She set down her drink.

“Listen,” she said. “I have to tell you all something.”

“Waitwait,” Forta drawled, clumsy hands waving for effect. “Lemme guess. Yoooou’re gonna go rogue. Pirate! Pirate Captain Quentius!”

“No, you dumbass,” Aela said with amusement in her subvocals. She glanced back at Phrixus. “See, there’s the embassy on the Citadel, and of course our councilor’s offices. But there’s also a Hierarchy outpost, right?”

Phrixus frowned. Was that right? He guessed so. He didn’t keep up with things like bureaucratic structures. He shrugged at her.

She rolled her eyes. “It’s meant to coordinate with the other council species’ militaries. They, quote-unquote, exchange information and coordinate joint ops in the rest of the galaxy. Anyway–”

She cleared her throat. Mira, the sober twin tonight, leaned in toward her. Aela glanced back at her.

“Anyway,” she continued. “Every year the Citadel outpost takes in some greenies and lets them do basic here. And I’ve prequalified.”

Eyes wide, Mira lunged to grasp onto Aela’s arm. “Oh my god. Are you saying you’re getting to stay? You’re not leaving!”

“Well, the barracks are over in Roppa Ward, but yeah,” Aela said, her voice on the edge of _preening_.

Phrixus’s stomach churned.

She had never said anything to him about some Citadel-based boot camp. Not once. Had never told him there was a way he didn’t have to leave his moms behind, or Mira, or Forta, or, hell, even Aela herself.

“Hold on,” Phrixus said, straightening. “How many people are going to this… whatever here?”

Aela turned back to him. Mira let go of her arm, and a look came over her as she stared between them.

“There’s me,” Aela stated, and rattled off a total of five others. Three of them going to their school and in some of their classes. And this was great; it was just what he would expect. There was Aela, of course: daughter of General Quentius, fourth in line for Primus and next for Councilor. Then the son of the governor of Menae, the son of the ambassador to Thessia, and the daughter of the vice-president of the volus-client contract federation– the Hierarchy’s most influential bank.

Of course.

How could he have been so stupid.

“And how do you prequalify for this special boot camp?” he asked her quietly.

Aela stared at him, at whatever his quiet tone was transferring into his face. Her eyes narrowed. And Phrixus could only distantly feel Forta beside him shifting, maybe saying something, and Mira over there with her wide eyes.

“You have to have sufficient grades, physical aptitude, and exhibit exceptional ambition,” Aela said, her jaw jutting forward and her eyes searing.

Phrixus laughed. “Exceptional ambition? Is that what they call it?”

She tensed, her limbs coiled and too still. “Jaril, don’t you–”

Mira cut in. “Aela, how long have you known?”

Aela glanced at her.

“A while now,” she admitted. “Eight months.”

Mira’s brow knitted. “Why are you telling us just now?”

Her mandibles tucked and flicked, a warring between her conflicting impulses.

“ _Because_ ,” Aela snapped. “I knew he’d be like this.”

She jerked a hand out to wave at Phrixus.

“Spirits, since day one he’s had a freaking chip on his shoulder about being some colonist. Giving everyone else that fucking look he’s got right now just because we weren’t poor enough for him. Poor little nobody, all alone with these snooty pieces of shit.”

“You–” Phrixus started, his subvocals going low and trembling. “I don’t _have_ a problem with rich people. I have a problem with people who weasel the fuck out of their obligations. Obligations that we’re all supposed to fucking share. I have a motherfucking _problem_ with people who think they’re better than others.”

Aela was standing now. And he was, too. He’d lost track of the twins, didn’t even really care where they were or what they were doing.

“You ungrateful shit,” Aela spat. “I’ve been nothing but a friend to you–”

“Oh, excuse me, ignorant fuck that I am, unwise to your grand Citadel manners. Didn’t know I had to be fucking _grateful_ to someone for deigning to be my friend.”

“Fuck you,” she said, voice trilling and razored. “You’re the one that’s always just sat there, judging us. Hating us. The only reason you ever hung out with us is so you could screw Mira–”

Phrixus punched her. He just drew back and hit her in the jaw. Aela reeled. She turned back, eyes blazing, and lunged at him. The next few moments were a blur of cutting talons and huffs of pain. And then he got winded when someone grabbed him by the middle and dragged back, forcing the air from his chest. The music’s bass was pounding his head and around them people had stopped to stare, a few laughing.

Forta had him in a death grip; he hadn’t been joking when he’d started bragging about being able to deadlift, uh, what the hell ever was that number. Because Phrixus had always been taller than Forta, but now he was practically hanging in his arms like a doll. Mira and N’tessa had Aela’s arms pinned between them, even with her squirming and glaring daggers at him.

“You gonna be good, ‘cause if this keeps on I’m gonna puke all over your carapace,” Forta managed to squeeze out between Phrixus’s struggling.

Phrixus stilled. “Yeah, fine.”

He didn’t wait to continue the conversation or what the hell ever they wanted from him; he strode around the couch, out the living room through the throngs of kids staring at him incredulously, and out the door. The Quentius mansion was in a tiered garden neighborhood, with a few expensive cars flying up and down to their docks. It was quite a walk down to the ‘gutter’ of the tiers, where you could reach the entrance to the tram station.

He set his shoulders, and tried to quiet his still furiously beating heart and the jumpiness in his muscles. He couldn’t even feel where Aela’d gotten him over the eye. But he blinked and realized he was bleeding. Swearing quietly, he stopped. What was he going to tell his moms?

“Phrixus!”

He turned.

Mira was jogging toward him, apparently having been calling him for a while. Forta wasn’t far behind. He didn’t say anything as she stopped before him, her brother slowing to keep some distance.

“You–” she started. She gazed up at the spot above his eye.

He didn’t resist as she tugged him off into one of the neighborhood’s side garden, with prettily-trimmed hedges and a damn fountain too. None of them had a spare cloth or anything (they wore athletic gear from running around the Arena earlier), so he just kind of stuck his face near the fountain water’s surface and splashed some onto his cut. Mira sat on the fountain lip nearby, Forta leaning on the little courtyard wall.

“Are you okay?” she asked.

With some satisfaction, Phrixus watched the dark blue stickiness of his blood make swirls in the little decorative fountain.

He looked up at her. “Did you know about this?”

Mira drew back. Her brow drew in and her lips parted soundlessly. “What…”

He didn’t add anything, just looked at her. She blinked rapidly.

“No,” she finally said tightly. “I don’t know why you’d think– this was the first I’d heard she was staying here.”

Phrixus glanced at Forta, who seemed more focused and frowned.

“Phri, c’mon. You know we would’ve said something,” he told him.

He looked back at Mira. “It’s just hard to see how I never heard of some option to get stay here.”

Abruptly, Mira stood. “Do you think I’d keep something like that secret? That I wanted Aela to stay and not you?”

Phrixus didn’t answer. He looked back at the fountain surface and his dissipating swirl of blood mixing with these rich fucks’ precious decorative water. Mira was beside him, he could see down the length of her legs and her expensive sneakers.

“Fine,” she said. “Whatever. I don’t care. Just– whatever.”

And her legs and her sneakers walked away, out of his line of vision. Her steps squeaked out and down in the lane, in the direction of the station. Forta’s legs replaced hers, though, and his hand fell on Phrixus’s shoulder. He tensed, didn’t respond or look up, so Forta dropped his hand. Probably shrugged and almost said something. And then he jogged away in the direction his sister went.

Phrixus sat there for a long time before he got up and dragged his feet toward the tram station.

-

_I’m sorry. I should have told you sooner. That was shitty of me. And I was out of line, saying that stuff about you and where you came from. And I know this thing with me staying here is just another example of the system that shouldn’t be like this, that there’s so much hypocrisy. It’s a shit system, I know, but_

_I don’t know, Phrixus. I feel like I have a part to play in this world. Even with its shitty system. How about this– if in fifteen years I don’t make something out of what I’ve been given, you can have me impeached or court-martialed or whatever it is that’ll hurt me the most._

_And I’m sorry about what I said about you and Mira. I know you care about each other. It’s just I’ve known her since preschool and then you come along and getting her to just answer a damn message is like pulling teeth. Sometimes I miss her, okay?_

_Also, you asshole, that punch fucking hurt. You don’t do meelee, bullshit!_

_Sincerely, Your Very Sorry Friend,  
Aela_

_-_

_And you got your damn claws in my side. That maneuver’s not in the manual for acceptable rules of engagement, moron._

_I’m sorry, too. You’ve been a friend to me. You really have, and you’ve been there for me. And yeah, I have to admit that I’ve been jealous sometimes. But I guess at the end of the day, I’m glad we’re friends._

_I didn’t take Mira from you or anything. You know you’ll always be her best friend. So I’m glad you’ll get to hang out with her in between lazing around the embassies or whatever it is you’re gonna end up doing. Don’t think I’m not going to hold you to that fifteen year promise. You think I’m salty now? You have no freaking idea._

_Phrixus_

-

[phrixus] hey

[phrixus] please talk to me

[phrixus] mira

[phrixus] i’m sorry

[phrixus] im a fucking idiot

[phrixus] i shouldn’t have fought with aela. im just scared. i dont want to leave my moms, or you, or any of this here. i hate that she gets to stay and i can’t. im jealous of her. everything seems so easy for her, and im just struggling to make sense of my life. i dont want to leave you, i dont want you to forget me.

[mira] im sorry too. i don’t want you to leave either.

[mira] you know i want you to stay so much right

[phrixus] i know

[mira] im not gonna forget you

[mira] you cant forget me either

[phrixus] that’s not possible

[phrixus] it’s only a year

[mira] i know

[mira] ill wait

-

Later, when some dipshit skulking around read over his shoulder as he went back over those logs, he was teased mercilessly by his squad. And he got incredibly embarrassed. But he probably should have been more embarrassed about getting embarrassed.

-

When he goes in to hug Calix, there’s a distinct pause, a moment of significance when they both realized that he’s taller than her.

Only by a few centimeters, that’s all. But still.

Regardless, she pulled him to her and squeezed tight, her talons catching on the rather plain uniform he’d been issued.

“Mandibles up, hun,” she whispered at his jaw. “It’s only a year.”

They both knew that wasn’t really true. Basic training was a year, yeah, but then he’d only be given a short leave to visit home before shipping out again to his first posting. And there were vid calls, of course, and his parents could visit him graduation week, but– that wasn’t the thing. The thing was, this was it. This was the point where he went from civilian to citizen. Where his life wasn’t just about himself or his moms or his friends. Now his life was given to the Hierarchy,

Phrixus nodded, though. “Yeah. It’ll go by fast.”

Calix let him go, and Domera took her place.

Other families on Dock 86 were saying the same things around them. It’s only a year. Listen to the officers. Don’t deal shit you can’t take. Work hard. Call home. We’ll miss you. Goodbye. Domera patted him on the back, a steady rhythm. Like she used to when he was little, and he couldn’t fall asleep without one of them patting him on the back.

Phrixus pulled away and met Domera’s gaze. They nodded, and she let him go with a last pat on his arms.

Mira stood nearby. They reached for each other and flattened themselves together. They’d had about nine weeks after the fight with Aela– nine weeks of eeking out every touch and minute of time spent together– but it hadn’t seemed like nearly enough. He could feel her fists balling up the fabric across his back, and his hands were entwined in her dark brown curls. There was a tight thing growing in his chest, so he exhaled (breathed in one final smell of her shampoo) and made himself separate. Made himself tap his forehead against hers, and rotate down to a brief brush of their lips. And let go.

She looked up at him. Then she dropped her gaze, and let Forta squeeze him tight, too (shut up, man, _you’re_ crying). The couple of their friends that had come patted him on the back. Aela wasn’t there; she was already at her camp, busy with a thing. Probably just as well. He didn’t want to end up saying something he’d regret.

A shrill whistle cut the dock’s chatter. The sergeant sent from Caelax, second planet in the same system as Palaven and site of the second oldest basic training camp, stood at the dock exit, hard eyes gazing over them all.

“Line up,” he stated sharply.

The turian parents nudged their kids. Final words were hurriedly exchanged, luggage was slung over backs.

“ _Today_ , people,” the sergeant barked. “You’ve carried them for nine months, raised them for fifteen years, now they’re mine. They aren’t your civilians; they’re my citizens, _let’s go_.”

Phrixus slung final one-armed hugs around Calix and Domera, grabbed his backpack, and lined up.

One by one, the sergeant called out roll and each of the teenagers shuffled out the dock exit, giving their families one final look back. As Phrixus answered his name, and walked toward the sergeant, he got a last glimpse of his moms doing their best to smile and wave, at Forta and his friends waving in earnest, and Mira just watching, her face tight and frozen. The dock hatch hissed closed behind him.


	6. Chapter 6

Four brigades call Fort Caelax home, with a rotating population of about thirty thousand teens each year. The proximity to Trebia System’s star had burned Caelax’s surface hot and uninhabitable. A carefully gridded system of biodomes over red-streaked gray crags housed the fort, with guard outposts ranged around its perimeter. Satellites and stations orbited the planet as well, some non-military, but several also used in various training exercises for boot camp.

After a week of processing (learning every basic down to the procedure for wiping his ass), Phrixus was assigned to a company with only a dozen or so people also from the Citadel, and a squad with only one other than him. No one, of course, was from Niiet, because he had been the only kid his age from the colony. Everyone else had been a year or two ahead or behind him.

In his squad, the girl from the Citadel was from some lower ward he’d never been to, three people were from Palaven itself, one guy was actually a station hopper, and the rest were colony kids.

Boot camp felt like waking up.

There weren’t people talking about dropping thousands of credits on Illium during the last vacation; Licinius Ruq, the station hopper, told him about living with a dad in and out of incarceration all his life. Had to go for a long time wearing someone else’s clan markings. There weren’t people talking about second homes on the Citadel that they could mess up in a party and a maid would take care of it; Sixil Tarqtus, from a tiny colony just like Niiet, traded stories with him about stealing utility vehicles for joyrides and breathing the noxious fumes of mineral mines.

And his days changed so much. He didn’t get up, maybe take the early tram to school, maybe take the late one. Hang out before class, go to classes, and then maybe do homework in the afternoon, maybe go to Silversun, maybe (and most likely) have plans with Mira. He woke up every day at 0430, had physical training at 0500, had classes and training throughout the day and did not get any free time until 2000. Day in, day out. Every moment was planned, every one of his moves had to be accountable.

The year would be divided in two: the first six months belonged to basic combat, with constant fitness training, basic gun handling, Hierarchy values and law, etc. And then six months of advanced training, with reassignment according to his chosen field. Which he had to start thinking about. Soon.

But, all in all, things were manageable. Some sergeant somehow knew he’d gone to the fancy Citadel school, and liked to dog him for being a prissy rich kid, expecting special treatment. Which was hilarious and also kind of infuriating. But it was boot camp; you took it and that was that. He realized that his agonizing about leaving home was not something he alone had a monopoly on; especially early on, you could sometimes hear sniffing after lights out.

He called his moms at least once a week. Forta and Aela and others he emailed fairly frequently. Mira– she messaged a lot, but he wasn’t able to access his private omnitool until free time.  Local time in Trebia System didn’t align with the Citadel’s, and his free time coincided with class times over there. Coordinating a vid call was difficult, and every day he ended up with a backlog of little snippets of her days and questions about his. But the fact that she kept up the messages was a relief. At least this wouldn’t change. Even if he couldn’t return the same amount of attention; because even his free time sometimes got taken over by cleaning duties or homework.

All in all, it was manageable.

-

Which was what he’d thought, until the weeks came and went and Phrixus found himself increasingly prone to wandering thoughts and remembering afternoons spent in close little bedrooms.

And that clutter of thoughts and memories got so crowded in his head-- standing room only among the half-corporeal warmths and touches-- that he made the morning runs very difficult for himself. Made the black hours in the barracks, surrounded by the soft breathing of others, difficult for himself. Privacy, and the spare time in which to enjoy it, was at a premium. The bathrooms were communal, the barracks housed them in six to a room.

It wore down his temper to a sort of permanent installation of one of his prickly moods. He had to watch himself when the sergeants started in on him and his precious Citadel education, called him fancy shit and whatever. And any bull thrown at him by his squad got thrown back. He was, yet again, resident salt master of the group.

And he was trying very hard to keep from chucking his scrub brush at Licinius Ruq’s stupid fucking head, right in his whistling mouth.

On his knees and scrubbing jauntily, Ruq whistled “Die For The Cause.” Sometimes people on fire watch– the rotating duty where two troops kept watch or cleaned or whatever for an hour during the night and went and woke up the next pair up for duty– sometimes, the loss of sleep caused an obscene cheerfulness. Ruq was bad for this. Unfortunately, they got paired up a lot for shit like this. Fire watch, latrine cleaning. Even latrine cleaning during fire watch! On hands and knees, scrubbing bleach into overbleached tiles to the tune of the national anthem. Wonderful.

“Ruq, if you don’t shut your ugly fucking face–”

“You’ll what?” Ruq shot at him, ducking his brush into his bucket. “Get angry? That’s your default state of being, Jaril. Kick my ass in the wrestling ring? You already got that down pat. Nope, all the same, I’ll keep whistling.”

Phrixus dropped his brush, ignoring the splatter of harsh-smelling droplets on his t-shirt. He stared across the length of tiles between them, and seriously considered kicking Ruq’s ass. He didn’t _do_ meelee, but not because he was bad at it.

Luckily for Ruq, his omnitool buzzed before he could decide to take a swing. Phrixus met Ruq’s glance. Ruq looked back down at his scrubbing. Having his personal omnitool on fire watch wasn’t really allowed. Well, no ‘really’ about it. It absolutely wasn’t allowed.

Phrixus wiped his hands on his shirt, and flipped open his omnitool.

Music blasted over the tool’s speakers. He jumped and flew to adjust the settings to filter out background noise.

“ _Hiiii_!”

He stared down at the little holo of a wildly waving Mira. “Hey.”

“Oh my god, I’m so glad you answered,” she told him. She was drunk, her words coming loose and slow. “It’s hard to get you these days.”

“Yeah, well,” Phrixus said, glancing at Ruq sneaking a look up at him. “Kind of hard to get time to myself, you know?”

“I knooow,” she said.

He stood and walked to a corner, away from Ruq’s curiosity. For all the good it would do; the bathroom tile bounced her voice around, amplified it.

“Where’re you at?” he asked her.

“Oh!” she exclaimed. The feed swiveled and spun as she stood. She moved to let the camera pan out to include a couch; on the ratty side, but decent and affordable looking. “Guess!”

Phrixus’s head whipped to look at Ruq; likewise, Ruq whipped to look back down at the floor. But he had somehow gotten a meter or two closer. He looked back at his omnitool. He remembered. They’d sat on that couch. Made out on it. He remembered the way her fingers, so tentative and light, had held his jaw and slid underneath his mandible, to the soft tissue there.

“N’kae’s?” he said. N’tessa’s older sister.

“Correct!” she said, sounding entirely too pleased with herself. She dropped onto the couch and laughed.

And the unsteady whirl of her tool’s camera on her, the dizzying blur of her features recalled misplaced glimpses from his memories. Her lips and nose, out of context. The feel of his clipped talon pressing on her cheek.

“Mira? Are you talking to someone?”

And she was looking up out of the camera’s view pane. “It’s Phrixus.”

Forta appeared at her shoulder. “Oh! Hey, Phri!”

“Hey,” he said.

“You know you’re not supposed to call him out of the blue, right?” Forta asked her.

“He’s my boyfriend,” she told him.

“I know, but–”

Phrixus shook his head. “It’s okay, but–”

“Hi!” Ruq had crept behind him, and now was looking down into his omnitoool.

“Hi!” Mira said, smiling up at them. “Who’re you?”

Phrixus tried to shove Ruq away from him, but he just planted his feet and grabbed onto his sleeve.

“Licinius Ruq. We’re in the same squad.”

“Oh! That’s fun.”

“It is fun,” Ruq agreed.

Phrixus violently shook his arm, dislodging Ruq and side-stepping him.

“Listen, I gotta go,” he told them. “Get home safe, okay guys?”

“Yeah, don’t worry,” Forta told him.

“Hey,” Mira said. “Wait–

Phrixus paused.

“I miss you.”

He froze. And there was no way in hell he was going to look up to see Ruq’s expression. Or look up to invite whatever comment the jerkoff had in store. He just looked down at the little blue-tinged holo projection of her, looking up at him.

“I– yeah. I’ll message you,” was all he managed. “I gotta go.”

She blinked. “Okay.”

Phrixus shut down his omnitool. Not just his comm, but the whole thing. He ignored Ruq, picked up his brush, and went back to scrubbing on his hands and knees. After a long stretch of silence filled with the scratching sweeps of his brush, Ruq walked around him and went back to work, too.

“ _I knooow_ ,” Ruq finally said, pitching his voice high and undulating down and up. Affected a particularly silly version of a Citadel accent.

Phrixus glanced at him. “She doesn’t sound like that.”

“C’mon. A little bit.”

Phrixus ignored him. Put a slightly furious push into his scrubbing motion. The tile dug up into his knees.

“Why didn’t you just tell her you miss her too?” Ruq continued. “Just me here.”

Yeah, no witnesses when I strangle you, Phrixus mulled to himself. He dunked his brush for more watery, soapy bleach.

“You know,” Ruq said. “When I was, what, eight? Eight or so, we were on Omega for a while. There was this one dancer that my dad ran around with. Shula. Always bought me candy or little toys and stuff. They broke up when Dad got caught in his next robbery, but when he got out and we moved, he would get drunk and call Shula. Always Shula. Never my mom, or his current girlfriend. Just Shula.”

“What are you saying, Ruq?” Phrixus all but snapped.

He shrugged, resting his hands on the tile and looking at him. “I dunno. Just maybe you should’ve told her you missed her too.”

What the hell was the point of this, anyway? The grout between these tiles was so old, it was starting to crumble when you ran a brush over it. No way would anyone ever be able to get out that ancient yellowing.

“Mind your own business,” he told him.

-

There was a particular sergeant, Icthus, that had it out for him.

Yeah, yeah. Everyone had a damn ‘this one asshole trainer had it out for me’ story, but, seriously, by the time he puked for the thirteenth time ( _yeah_ , he counted) after receiving the gift of extra laps during physical training from her– he was pretty sure she wanted him to die from a burst heart.

And it’s not like it got easier. Yeah, he wasn’t unfit or anything when he got here; the Arena had at least helped some with that. But as he got more and more accustomed to the running and the weights and the courses, the more and more laps Icthus lobbed on him.

On that thirteenth gift of laps, after which he puked, he was running for so long he missed breakfast. He couldn’t miss classes, of course, so Sergeant Icthus just spat and told him he had more due to her during free time. He dragged through the day, and in the evening ran until he puked up dinner (fourteen!). By the time he got back to the barracks, it was lights out. He couldn’t even crawl his way to the showers to wash the smell of sweat and vomit off of him, not after curfew.

And so, it had to be understandable that he just slapped the blinking light on his omnitool off.

At least he didn’t have fire watch tonight. Of course, if he had fire watch, he’d have a chance to sneak out his omnitool and check his messages. But then he’d– well, honestly, there was a good possibility he’d leave his tool wedged into his footlocker.

Lately, he’d started to dread the sight of that blinking notification light. Because he didn’t want to think about this growing rise of irritation in his stomach with each message telling him about some new high score at the Arena, some incident where Forta used biotics to tamper with an arcade game and broke the damn thing. Here he was, puking up bits of liver and lung, and everyone back home was having fun.

He didn’t want to deal with the way he was having a hard time telling Mira how he felt about the separation, the way he was having a hard time hearing her tell him how upset she was with him gone. He didn’t tell her this, though. Didn’t tell her how he was struggling and feeling bogged. Didn’t tell her any of that. And, _fucking spirits_ , add to that the fact that he was frustrated, almost 24/7, by thoughts of her, of others in the company, and the guilt that added to the damn mess. Guilt that he thought of other people, guilt that he was wanted her and yet didn’t much want to talk to her.

Spirits. And he thought the time before they started dating was bad. That the pressed down feeling he’d gotten before shipping out had been bad.

None of that had shit on this.

He slept pretty badly that night. One, he stank. Two, he was so sore it made any position, any form of existence at all, excruciating. In the morning, he powered his way through physical training by just giving in to the dead inside feeling. He skipped most of breakfast for a shower, grabbed a protein drink, and survived training and classes. Lunch and dinner. He actually made it to free time, lungs still pumping and neurons probably still firing.

Then he remembered last night, slapping off his omnitool.

With the now familiar rise of guilt, he dug it out of his footlocker. Ruq and the four others he shared the room with were out in the rec room, working on homework or goofing off more likely. The tidy little barracks room, sterile metal walls and ceramic tile floors, held three bunk beds, six footlockers, and a set of stand-up lockers for uniforms. That was about it.

Phrixus toed the door closed and sat on his bunk.

He had an enormous number of messages from Mira and Forta. And Aela. Most asking him to call. That guilt in his stomach turned to something else. He vid called Mira.

“Hey, sorry–”

He stopped. The little holo version of her sat in her room. He’d recognize all of those frilly pillows and those peach-pink walls any day. Even with the room only lit by the glow of her omnitool. She was in pajamas, sitting up in bed. It was her face that stopped him.

“Hey,” she said, voice quiet and hoarse.

He stared for a moment. “Hey. Sorry I didn’t get back last night.”

“It’s okay.”

He was quiet, and she was too. The guilt that had become something else churned. Her eyes, turning to the side, burned with bloodshot.

“I need to–” she started, and then her voice hitched. She swallowed. “I need to tell you something.”

“Okay,” he said.

She shifted, straightening. “So. Um. It’s actually… My mom is sick.”

“What?”

“They told us yesterday.  She’s been going to the hospital for weeks now and just got a diagnosis.  It was all her early eezo research. We– humans– didn’t really know what we were doing back then– AEND. That’s what it’s called. Neurodegenerative. Terminal–”

She cut herself off. Like a path falling off into a great bottomless crater.

Ellen Ryder. He could see her as she’d laughed at some joke one of his moms made at that dinner party, pouring wine and slipping, spilling a large purplish blot onto her table. The way it made her laugh harder, wheeze as she mopped it up with a napkin. Filling out a chemistry lab with Mira in their living room, trying to keep their voices low because Ellen’s over at the table and Mira’s just copying. And Ellen probably indulging them by ‘not hearing.’

He would wonder later if this was the point. If this was the moment. If it all fell out of this occurrence. Out of his failure to say all the things he should have said. But that wasn’t true. Well, it was true there were things he should have said. But things don’t happen in a vacuum. Lives are the product of all the things that come before, all the things that were and weren’t said. This wasn’t the one moment, because there wasn’t one singular moment.

In the meantime, he wasn’t saying anything, because he did not know what to say.

“Dad and Mom are going back to Earth to continue treatment. Selling the apartment. Mom doesn’t want our lives to be disrupted, so we’re moving to the school dorms…”

She trailed off, looking at some point in the far off darkness of her room. She didn’t cry, or even express much of anything in the slack set of her eyes and mouth.

“What,” Phrixus said. “How… how long does she…?”

“Years. That’s what they said. Maybe a few years.”

She reached up and tucked a stray lock behind her ear.

“Dad keeps saying we can’t give up. That he’s going to do everything…” she frowned, shook her head.

And then she finally looked at him.

“Phrixus? Are you okay?”

He didn’t mean to sound angry, but he did. “Why are you asking me that? What–”

He stopped, and made himself slow down. “Are you okay?”

That stray lock slid free again, swinging forward. She just shrugged.

“No,” she stated.

And she kept looking at him, up out of that display of projected light points. Not even her, just some version of her lacking her presence and the nearness for him to reach out and say something to– to what? Fix it? What could he possibly do? The barracks room he sat in rang with a cold clarity. He needed to say something, do something, anything. She needed _something_ from him.

But all Phrixus could think of was to say, “I’m sorry.”

Mira just nodded. “Yeah.”

The unfamiliar pause and the unfamiliar thing in it stretched.

“Look,” she said. “It’s late. I’ll message you tomorrow, okay?”

“…Okay,” he said. “Are you going to be alright?”

“Yeah. Talk to you later?”

“Right.”

As the connection cut, and his omnitool went dark, and he sat in the cold clarity of the barracks, he realized neither of them had said a real goodbye. No ‘I miss you.’ Or… There were still words sitting on the back of his tongue like bile.

-

After six months of basic combat, even with Sergeant Icthus breathing down his carapace, Phrixus graduated to advanced training. And he chose to continue military training. Some of his squad went for infrastructure, a couple wanted to further their education in sciences, three went for engineering, Haetil Markius (the big outside, little inside type) checked off liberal arts on her forms, and the remaining two chose military like Phrixus. Licinius Ruq (unfortunately) and Jyra Kraetoq (the one other in the squad from the Citadel, from the lower wards).

They were reassigned to a new company, and a new squad. But they were placed together: him, Ruq, and Kraetoq.

It’s not like military had been his lifelong dream or anything. He didn’t grow up with his eyes glued to the military drama reruns that played every weekend, or demand little soldier toys from his moms. Of course, turians would always have an admiration for the military and those who devoted themselves to the front lines. It was in their blood. Or their cultural blood anyway.

But Phrixus really just chose it because he was good at it. He had good gun sense, was physically fit and growing taller by the minute, and took orders well. The last part was the most important as far his trainers were concerned. You served the Hierarchy to your best ability, and the best ability that the military wanted was obedience. And Phrixus was good at that, so that’s how his life started to take shape before him.

“Well,” Calix had said, during a vid call before he signed off on the forms. “Honey, it’s your choice, and we’ll support you no matter what you choose. But are you sure?”

“Yeah. I can’t imagine really being… I dunno, a politician or teacher or something. And it’s what they’re recommending for me.”

“Recommendations are just recommendations,” Domera stated, sitting beside Calix at their table at home. That wasn’t exactly true; yeah, recommendations made by trainers after all your evaluations were meant to help guide choices, but it was considered pretty irregular to deviate from that.

“And politicians and teachers don’t get shot at,” Domera added

“ _Mom_ –”

“I know, I know. I’m worrying too much. But that’s my job. To worry about you. And maybe you should worry a little bit more.”

“Look,” Phrixus said. “I get it. It’s scary. But that’s what the training is for. So we react to every situation before we have to think about it. I understand the risks. And I think I can handle it.”

Calix and Domera had sat for a long moment, their mandibles pulled in.

Calix sighed, subvocals low and vibrating. “Okay, Phrixus. If that’s what you want. We understand.”

“We’re proud of you, honey,” Domera said, her eyes overbright. “You know that? And you can do it, I know. Just remember us and be careful, okay?”

“Thanks, guys,” he said, eyes darting down and his chest warm.

Calix cleared her throat. “By the way– we saw Ellen the other day.”

He shifted. “Oh… yeah? How is she?”

The two of them sighed, glanced at each other. “She looked good. But I guess you can’t always tell with these things. The twins are already moved into their dorms, and their place got sold. They’re leaving day after tomorrow. I think the real estate agency is taking care of their furniture.”

“We promised we’d check in on Mira and Forta every now and then,” Domera added. “Have you talked to them recently?”

“Yeah. But I mean… I dunno. It’s just tough, I guess.”

Domera shook her head. “Those poor dears. I know you’re busy, but just keep in touch, okay hun?”

“Yeah.”

And Phrixus _had_ talked to them. Forta had vented at length to him, and Mira as well, if not with the same vehemence and extent. But he still didn’t feel as if he’d done anything to help them. Anything he said felt trite and and cliche. I’m sorry. That’s terrible. And worst of all: things will be okay. Because, no, things were not going to be okay. Terminal. That horrible, terrifying word. Even just imagining himself in their place, if it was Calix or Domera and not Ellen, had him break out in a sweat, his head swimming with vertigo.

It did not make sense. You could logically think, you know, at some point of time this person will no longer exist. But it did not make sense. It was like your whole being, from your mind down to your spirit, just wanted to reject that thought wholly and totally. He could not imagine, did not want to imagine, being in their place.

And because of his discomfort, (and because she could probably sense his discomfort), his messages with Mira got increasingly stilted. She seemed… withdrawn. She’d stopped going out as much, and was not as open and effervescent about the little details of her days.

He didn’t know what to say to her.

Also, he was still feeling pressed and consumed by the training, all the protocol they had to memorize, the physical demands of boot camp. The absolute control of his time, down to the last moments of the day. In one way, yes, the structure was easy to fall into and let take over. But that could also just as easily turn into a horrific numbness. That pressed down feeling sometimes bloomed into an emptiness.

But he hadn’t ever said any of this to Mira, or anyone. And then with what she and Forta were going through, it didn’t feel right to mention it.

In the end, he fell into the structure and rigor of prepping for military service like slipping into a warm ocean, and swimming without pause to the end of the world.


	7. Chapter 7

He hadn’t really gotten to know Jyra Kraetoq, of the lower Citadel wards, during basic. And two months into advanced training, he still knew jack-all about her. He and Ruq tended to include her at meal times and in down time, because they came from the same basic squad. And they were usually in the same fire team. But the most they’d gotten her to say about herself was that she could probably infiltrate any system of ductwork, felt strongly that anyone not carrying at least two sidepieces and knives was asking for it, and didn’t believe in eating meat. Even the vat-cloned “meat” that was so often a camp staple.

She was okay, though. Good with tech and a pistol.

He never saw Kraetoq after training; last he’d heard, she had a post out near geth space– some joint op with both Alliance and Flotilla forces cleaning up leftovers from the Battle of the Citadel. Ruq, unfortunately, stuck to him like varren shit. Some years after boot camp, they met again at the fringes of the Attican Traverse. Slaver hunting. But even without meeting up with Ruq again, he recalled these two in particular because they gave him some advice he should have listened to. Sure, Kraetoq went through partners like tp, and Ruq was so dense he’d have someone sticking their mandibles straight up into his before he realized they were interested– but still. You see the splinter in someone else’s eye better than the log in yours or whatever.

During one evening’s free time, most of their squad and the other squads in the company were in the rec room. Kraetoq had stood from the table she, Phrixus, and Ruq had been sitting at.

She whistled at him. “Jaril. Latrine.”

Feet propped on the table top, Phrixus looked up from his omnitool. “Take a female.”

They (meaning everyone under sergeant rank) had to walk around the camp in pairs, usualy male-male and female-female, but in cases of male-female you took three. One male, two females or one female, two males. It was kind of a pain in the middle of the night when someone had to pee really bad and had to wait on someone to wake up and stop cursing you for waking you up.

“I could make the obvious joke here,” Kraetoq drawled. “But let’s just save time and go already.”

He didn’t feel like arguing, so he dropped his feet and shoved at Ruq, napping on the table with his head in his arms. Ruq grumbled some but got up anyway. A short walk later, the two of them leaned against the wall outside the female latrine, Ruq half falling asleep again and Phrixus with his mandibles deep in his tool.

And his head was still mired elsewhere when Kraetoq came out, and the other two were halfway down the hallway.

“Jaril,” Ruq called.

He looked up, and pushed off the wall. And when he followed after them, and passed by them, Ruq got sneaky and shot out a hand to grab onto his wrist. Jerking, he whipped Phrixus’s hand around so that he could look at the omnitool, too.

“ _I’m not gonna forget you_ –” he read out loud. He whistled. “How darling. Romantic, even. How much did you pay the guy to write all this for your sour ass?”

Quicker than Ruq could react, Phrixus flicked him sharply on the forehead with his free hand.

“Shit–”

“Dumbass,” he told Ruq.

His hand returned to him, he turned off his omnitool. He’d been browsing through his old message logs. The people in them almost felt like… strangers. At what point had they stopped writing to each other like that, like… Their feelings were so easy to admit. To just spit out. It hadn’t even been a year since he’d written that line Ruq used, but it felt like a lifetime.

The three of them walked back to the rec area with Ruq shrilling about the mark Phrixus probably left. Kraetoq glanced at him. At the face he was making.

“Trouble in paradise?” she asked.

He glanced at her. Shrugged. “My girlfriend. Lately she’s… acting like a damn princess. I’m here, busting my ass, and…” He shrugged again. “It’s just hard to talk to her lately.”

They dropped into their old seats. Propped their feet up again. And Kraetoq didn’t say anything, so he thought the subject was dropped. But then she cleared her throat.

“Maybe she’s acting like a princess because she is one? Maybe every girl is a bit of a princess. Just some don’t get the chance to act like it.”

He looked at her. And shrugged and rolled his eyes because he was a damn idiot and thought she was complaining about having to nag them about walking her to the latrine, and not that she was saying something he should have really _heard_.

He should have been worried when Mira started going out again. Since the move to the dorms, Forta had decided to cut the drinking and work on lifting and his overall fitness. Of course, the timing and the amount of enthusiasm he threw into this should have worried Phrixus for an altogether different reason. Mira, though, went back to sneaking out with Aela and all the old suspects back home. He’d thought at first it was her just going back to things like normal. But then at some point she and Aela got bored of all the same old house parties.

[mira] soooo

[phrixus] yeah

[mira] me n aela have been up to no good

[mira] ;D

[phrixus] do i really want to hear this

[mira] yesss

[mira] you do

[mira] so u kno how ur csn is tied to ur face recs and thats how you get id’ed for bars and stuff

If at any time you are a citizen of Citadel space, you receive a constantly updating three-dimensional face scan that will be associated with a Citadel Space Number and your various specs. This information is stored with various police and government databases, which vendors of regulated goods and services are required to access before selling to you.

[phrixus] yeah…

[mira] well, we met this asari who knows someone that will program a jump in scanner software when your face is scanned so it looks like you’re legal

[mira] its expensive

[mira] but i think its worth it

[phrixus] mira

[phrixus] are you for real right now

[mira] what

[phrixus] you’re planning on going to bars and clubs

[phrixus] you’re a kid

[phrixus] you know that’s fucking dangerous

[phrixus] there are creeps out there

[mira] yeah i know

[mira] we’re not going to be stupid about it

[mira] whats with you

[mira] you used to be into this stuff

[phrixus] well maybe i just have my priorities straight

[mira] and i dont?

[phrixus] you’re failing half your classes, you skip too much, all you really seem to care about anymore is partying

[phrixus] you’re not even going to the gun ranges or the arena

[phrixus] and aela just keeps making it worse

[mira] you dont know anything

[mira] aela has been there for me

[mira] she actually listens to me

[mira] not like you anymore

[mira] you used to give a shit about my life

[mira] now im lucky if you even send a message once a day

[mira] you used to tell me things

[mira] now i dont know anything about what youre doing

[mira] or how you are

[mira] youve changed and i dont even know you anymore

[phrixus] you think i wanted it like this

[phrixus] im here because its my responsibility

[phrixus] im doing my duty and i dont have all the fucking time in the world to answer every message

[phrixus] especially all this crap about how hungover you are or whining about how expensive your fake id will be

[phrixus] im here doing real work in the real world

[phrixus] not like you and aela out in la la land over there

[phrixus] im getting my life together not fucking wasting it

[mira] no youre not youre just being an asshole

[mira] maybe everyone was right about you

[mira] youre not shy or misunderstood or whatever

[mira] youre just a selfish jerk

[mira] you have no idea how to care about anyone other than yourself

[mira] and i bet none of this is new

[mira] youve always looked down on me

[mira] youre just a fucking emotional leech

[mira] but dont worry i wont bother you again with my screwed up life

-

They didn’t talk for two weeks.

He had never been angry at anyone, had never been angry at _her_ in this way before. He’d never been hurt in this way.

He aced an impromptu fire and movement drill, earned praise from the company’s captain. He memorized all of the regs concerning the movement of refugees from an unsecured location to a secured location. He learned how to properly fire heavy artillery, and how to decimate an air raid with a dazzling firework display.

All the while pretending to not think about it. All the while stewing.

He felt like shit.

He ignored calls from home, from his moms and his old friends. All the messages. He told no one about the fight. Maybe he thought if he kept quiet, it would cease to exist. Just be erased from the history of the universe if no one could remember it.

But him ignoring it wasn’t going to erase the logs in his omnitool, or make her forget.

He just felt like shit.

When did things get so bad? How could it have been, just a year ago, that he felt there was no one who knew him better, that he trusted more, and then that same person turned into a stranger? Someone he couldn’t understand, someone who he couldn’t confide in or vice-versa? How the fuck was it possible that someone you’d shared a bed with– the _only_ person you’d touched or touched you could turn into… an enemy?

And what was it in him that just… could do nothing to help her. Her mother was dying. And he couldn’t do anything. He hadn’t been able to comfort her, say anything of significance for her. He was useless.

If he were honest, and not trying to forget the whole thing, he’d have to admit he didn’t have much right to criticize her.

Where did the trust get broken? Where did the understanding go? Where did that warm afternoon air go, sliding down their bare backs? Where did the quiet rustling as they shifted closer go? And her smile– when was the last time he’d made her smile?

That hit some deep spot in him, some horribly tender place that wasn’t protected by plates or armor. A place he’d been trying to ignore, all this time at camp.

He pretended to forget for two weeks before he ended up wide awake after lights out, laying in bed and staring at the ceiling. He was running on several nights of staring up at the ceiling instead of sleeping, and yet, here he was. Awake. Pretending.

Phrixus pushed up an elbow and glanced down from his top bunk. Everyone was out. In the hall outside, he couldn’t hear the boots of the patrolling fire watch. They were supposed to report anyone out of bed, but even if they caught him only brown-nosing assholes ever snitched on fellow trainees.

Silently, he slipped down the ladder. He dug his omnitool out, climbed back up, and pulled up the covers to block some of the light.

He sent a message to Mira. And waited. And waited. The air filters in the barracks room clicked at rapid rhythm every few hours. It wasn’t too loud, just sort of softly angry and stuttery. Could wake you up though, and you wouldn’t realize it was the filters. You’d get spooked and feel like something was sitting on your chest. He sent another message.

And he waited and waited.

[phrixus] We need to talk.

[mira] oooo cap

[mira] s

[mira] pucntion

[mira] ooooooo

[mira] u dontwnt to tallk tome

[phrixus] Have you been drinking?

A very long pause. He turned his omnitool’s light off when he heard the passing of the fire watch.

[phrixus] Where are you?

[mira] purgatory

[phrixus] Mira.

[mira] stop

[mira] dont

[phrixus] Who’s with you?

[mira] y do u caer

[phrixus] I’m messaging Aela.

[mira] no

[mira] y not alk me

[mira] im drunk im nt stupid

[mira] im the one u shld tallk to

[mira] but u dont

[mira] u nnever

[phrixus] im sorry

[mira] yeah

[mira] metoo

[phrixus] you wanna vid talk?

[phrixus] mira?

[phrixus] mira

He waited a while. And waited. Tried her again. Then he tried Aela.

[phrixus] hey are you with mira

[aela] yeah

[aela] we’re leaving purgatory now

[aela] try her tomorrow or something

[phrixus] ok

[phrixus] how is she

[aela] look, i’m the last person you want to ask about this

[aela] i’m not gonna pull punches

[aela] and i don’t want to make it worse

[aela] just talk to her tomorrow

-

So he skipped lunch the next day and messaged her. Wedged into the corner between two auxiliary buildings, having snuck his omnitool into his waistband in the morning. The electromagnetic barrier of the fort’s biodome buzzing distantly overhead. As answer, she vid called him back.

He was in fatigues, unbuttoned to the waist. The dome protected from a great deal of heat, but it was still much hotter out of doors.

She stared at him, out of the QE data transmission, tinged in hologram blue. In her dorm, sitting on a bed not so different from the one he used now. The plain, nondescript walls not so different from the ones in the barracks, yet hers papered with photo screens and posters. The cushions at her back the same from her old room. Her face was a mess, like clan markings done with cheap paint in a downpour, and she wore a wrinkled and disheveled dress he’d never seen before. Her hair was pulled back carelessly.

“Hey,” she said, small and quiet.

“Hey,” he said.

He could hear the distant rhythm of a jogging company. Even farther out, the sharp cracks of the range.

“You okay?” he asked.

Her eyes shot down, her jaw working. She shook her head.

“I don’t– I need to say something,” she said. “I said some stuff I shouldn’t have the last time we messaged.”

“I did, too–”

“Wait. Just, wait. I’m sorry. You’re not that type of person I said you were. But I also said some things I should’ve a while ago. Things haven’t… they haven’t been the same… Phrixus.”

He waited, holding his mandibles rigid. He watched the slide of her eyes to some spot away from him, and the working of her throat.

“I’m sorry,” he managed. “Mira, I’m sorry. I’ve been terrible. You’re nothing like… and I haven’t been there for you, I know. But I’ve been– worried about you.”

She hesitated, nervous hands going to push away a stray curl that wasn’t there. “I’m glad. I mean. I know I haven’t been making great choices. But I mean… I just wanted… some fun and– and you know, I’ve been worried about you, too. I don’t have any idea how you’re feeling anymore.”

“Yeah,” he said, subvocals dipping. “I know.”

“And I’m sort of tired of just… waiting for some bit of your time. I feel like I’m just a distraction for you.”

“You’re not– you’re not. But… I’m sorry. I just need, well, space. I really just can’t spare the same amount of time…”

“I know.”

Then she looked up properly, at the rigidity in his face. Her eyes shone. She inhaled, the sound trembling, in her throat.

“Phrixus, I think– I think this just isn’t working anymore. Things aren’t the same. And we both– I think we both need to focus on other things.”

The voice of some sergeant out in the yard spread out over the compound, echoing like a sergeant’s voice does, but wordless and unemotional and hard. An unintelligible dressing down of some group of teenagers.

“I…” he needed to reply, but his voice was skittering away from him. “I think… you’re probably right. I guess we should just– break up…”

She stared up at him. Her voice was so small and tight. “Yeah.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Me too.”

-

He felt… relief for a while. Relief that the pressure and responsibility of the relationship was over. That he didn’t have to come back to his bunk with a backlog of messages to catch up on.

But then the guilt set in. Had they just given up? Should he have tried harder, done more. How could he have said the things he did. This wasn’t just anyone. This was _her_. And she had needed him, and he hadn’t been there.

And then the pain set in. Like the story Lieutenant Gratarian had told them on simulation; there are times when soldiers get cleaved in two, and they’re dead, they just don’t realize it yet. But they keep talking, still trying to get help. But they’re dead, and they’ll feel it soon.

All the things he remembered, all the things they’d shared– it got into that deep and tender spot. Turned into this black blemish that never seemed to go away. He could forget about it. But sometimes something (some scent that reminded him, some shift in another’s form) would touch it, and light that tender spot on fire.

But what they’d said still remained.

Maybe it was for the best.

He could focus on training, and she could work things out, figure out the thing in her that was hurting.

Time passed. He didn’t try to make up or restart things, and neither did she.

And they moved on.


	8. Chapter 8

He graduated from basic training with a glowing review, his moms crying unabashedly in the crowd as the long lines of new troops marched by. His trainers pulled him aside, with Calix and Domera, and had a meeting where he felt sure he was hearing things; because they were piling all this praise on him that he’d never heard before. Probably for his parents’ benefit, not his.

But the reason they had a meeting was to ask if he wanted to go on to officer training.

It was an extra year, but it was a privilege to be recommended, and only a small portion of any graduating class received it.

Calix and Domera didn’t even try to hide their preening. They glowed with pride for him. But they turned to him, told him it was, as always, up to him. The Hierarchy was (ostensibly) a meritocracy. You didn’t have to have officer training for potential promotion, but the training did a lot to prepare you for all that merit earning.

“You take orders well; that’s halfway to giving them well,” one of the sergeants had said.

Phrixus had looked down at the datapad in front of him, with all the forms and information. He’d looked up at the expectant eyes of his trainers, and his mothers.

He nodded, and signed the forms.

-

When he turned seventeen, he graduated from officer training with commendations, just like the first year of training. During his first posting, he ran what basically amounted to a neighborhood watch on Palaven– a squad of troops graduated from bootcamp and just a year younger than him. He answered to a corporal a few years older than him, who answered to the local police captain. It was piddly shit, but he put his head down and did the work.

Thing was, the neighborhood he patrolled reminded him of all the ones he used to run around in on the Citadel two years ago. Nice. Big homes, community garden. Pools they had to herd skinny dipping pre-boot camp teens from.

He ignored the old memories, and showed the powers-that-be that he could be diligent, obedient, and proactive.

And he got reassigned after about six months for his troubles.

About three decades before, the Hierarchy established the military base Ena Mar in the Attican Traverse as a strategic jumping point to deal with slavers. It gave coverage to over a dozen colonies, and a few outposts, as a base of reinforcement. Colonies and their attached troops were expected to defend themselves and provide suppressive fire during first aggressions, but once alerted, Ena Mar moved in to overwhelm. Decimate. If a slaver cell acted within their reach, Ena Mar routed them from their intended target and pursued until they’d eliminated every last one of them. Sometimes they got lucky with a particularly stupid crew of slavers who’d retreat right back to their home base.

Complete and utter annihilation. Very classic turian stuff.

Under Lieutenant Helvam Tarqos, Phrixus swept through a good swath of the Traverse, mopping up batarians and pirates. To his utter delight, Licinius Ruq got assigned to the same platoon shortly after his own arrival. He still whistled, but now it was during transit between systems, during the long waits for air coverage to come in.

Lieutenant Tarqos was alright. A bit old to still just be an LT, but that probably had mostly to do with the man’s carefree attitude. Let some of the older troops call him Helvam, didn’t run a tight ship in the barracks, and whistled a counter-melody to Ruq on occasion.

At eighteen and after the better part of a year on Ena Mar, Phrixus heard that the Ryder twins had joined the Alliance. They’d managed to squeeze a pass out of high school, and pretty much immediately shipped out for basic. He’d messaged Forta pretty regularly, and Aela every now and then. Once she wasn’t quite so angry at him. Forta had given up the clean living thing after pulling a shoulder pretty badly. And Aela got into everyone’s business on a grander scale while working in their councilor’s office.

And he’d even heard from Mira herself a few times. They hadn’t said all that had to be said that last call. And, well. They still wanted to hear a little about each other. But he hadn’t seen her during his leaves, going home to Domera and Calix. Thinking about it, he hadn’t seen her face to face since he first left for boot camp.

But all of that was forever ago.

Well, three years. But when you’re that young, it seems forever ago.

But it was three years, two postings, and two years of training, and many new acquaintances and superiors and experiences since. In that time, he’d made his first kill. You’d think it would mean more, but he didn’t feel much but an urgency to move on to the next task. Maybe that was the training. Helped you put the blood and the fleshy, wet-sounding thumps into an out of the way place in your head. For later. There were the psych evaluations, of course. It was part of the duty, too. Keeping yourself fit on every level protected the squad, the platoon, the Hierarchy.

In all that time, he’d gone on a few dates. Ruq was too nervous about going on his own with this colonist boy, so Phrixus got roped into doubling with him. Then an apprentice botanist on one of the larger colonies that was cheerful and willing to kill some time with him. Nothing serious or too demanding. He wanted to focus on his career. “Most turian of turians,” Ruq called him. He was probably reluctant. Afraid, even. Of screwing things up again.

Things went on like this for about two years, getting alerts from the colonies and flying out to run down pirates. Then the Battle of the Citadel came. The whole regiment got pulled out of the Traverse, and sent to bolster the fleet. His platoon didn’t see much ground action on the Citadel itself; they boarded a geth ship for clean-up. It was over practically before it began.

Calix and Domera were fine. They evacuated pretty early. When he called them after the dust settled, they were more concerned for him, of course. Their apartment’s ward avoided the worst of the debris, but looters somehow got in and ransacked. They were mostly grateful that everyone was safe (mostly because Phrixus would kick the shit out of those looters if he ever found them).

When Lieutenant Tarqos, and several other platoons from their regiment, got assigned to geth hunting after the battle (what with their expertise in running down fleeing targets), Phrixus got word from Forta.

Ellen Ryder had died.

Some sort of experimental treatment had slowed the disease’s progression and given them five years. But she’d recently taken a turn for the worse, and the twins had been there in time to say goodbye. When they heard, Calix and Domera decided to pay Earth a visit and attend the memorial. Phrixus was in the middle of an operation and couldn’t…

He hadn’t grown up at all, it seemed. He didn’t know what to say to them.

He sent emails. It didn’t seem like enough. Yes, there were years between them, but… he still had that hidden spot that was so vulnerable and tender. The memories. He could try to ignore it all, and moving on was one thing, but there’s a point you have to realize that some marks in your life are just permanent. He sent the emails. They didn’t seem enough. He apologized.

Forta thanked him for his thoughts. And so did Mira.

His moms came back from Earth to an apartment set to rights again, and told him over vid call that the twins were about as good as could be expected. They barely saw Alec. They told him to be careful out there.

And life went on.

-

That was the same year he met Naea Corvinica.

With the regiment-wide change in objective from organic slavers and pirates to inorganic geth, the regiment’s colonel incorporated tech experts into each platoon. Lieutenant Tarqos received Specialist Naea Corvinica, a complex systems analyst and programmer. She’d done her thesis on geth something something, and had a solid background in AI history. So she came on to provide expertise and an operator for the new firewalls against remote system attacks from the geth they pursued out from Citadel space.

He’d become XO under Tarqos a few months before the Battle of the Citadel. Even so, Naea technically outranked him, and she was also older than him by five years. It made doing his duties a little tricky. Not impossible; regulations for coordinating specialists were pretty clear. But he didn’t like the way she was always deferential. The way she did it, mind. Not snide and passive aggressive. But… gently. With humor. Like, yes, you are very upright and respectful and I find that…

Spirits, how the hell would he know.

All he did know was that he kind of didn’t like the way Naea Corvinica smiled.

After weeks of this smiling and him not liking it, they managed (thanks to Naea’s smokescreens) to track down a geth shipyard, hidden in plain view on an abandoned once-garden world, over-mined and over-farmed to a dry husk. With an initial aerial assault to blow to shit all of the factories and incomplete ships, they landed boots on the ground and demolished every last geth. Geth hardware units, anyway. Which Naea was fond of frequently reminding them. The real triumph, she said, was the destruction of a data core which housed hundreds of thousands of software units. Of course, current estimates of the galaxy’s entire geth population numbered vaguely in the billions. But still.

He wasn’t going to lie; his heart pumped with a fierce sort of satisfaction with every shattered lamp head, after seeing the damage they’d done to the Citadel. The ships from every military that were lost, the lives sacrificed.

Everyone else felt the same.

So they all ended up in a much needed, much overdue party.

Drinks were produced (Lieutenant Tarqos somehow had a whole crate of horosk stashed away?), a haphazard assemblage of a geth prime was constructed to fire potshots at, their couple of biotics were giving free rides. And then, somehow– and really, what “somehow,” because he wasn’t an idiot, he’d known what was happening– he ended up in a backroom with Naea Corvinica, still kind of disliking how she smiled at him. And, you know. Not not liking it.

The next day, his head pounded and his gut squirmed with confusion. He’d only ever had one other casual hook-up before, and he’d considered the experience beyond awkward. Not something to repeat. But military regs were clear: no fraternization. End, stop. No one was going to give you too much trouble over a heat-of-the-moment, post-celebration thing, but dating? No.

And Phrixus had put too much into his career, had invested so much of himself to the idea of Hierarchy service, to jeopardize it like that.

And yet. Naea was… something. The idea of relegating her (or her relegating him) to a heat-of-the-moment mistake made him uncomfortable.

In the end, she made it easy for him. They’d keep quiet, and maybe not worry about putting names to things or saying it’s exclusive or anything.

In time, he learned that she knew about a million tech puns and wasn’t afraid to unleash them on unsuspecting passerby. That she was unflappable; like, literally, she must have had ice in her veins, because she could dismantle a hostile trojan infiltrating their core systems and tampering with the ship’s life supports around her, all under record time. That she had a quarian step-sister whose connections to the Flotilla she shamelessly used when she needed input on a new project. And she liked cheesy old movies, especially the romances. She liked to act like she was making fun of them (laughing at all the corny lines), but somewhere in the middle he’d sneak a look at her, her eyes shining and moving to some far away place that lead deep within her.

-

“This is not how I planned to spend my leave,” Phrixus complained.

He looked down at himself, frowning, as the cab he’d just exited flew off. It was the only formal wear he owned, and he’d only bought it because the colonel held a banquet last year and hadn’t allowed uniforms. It was all stiff and uncomfortable, high-collared.

“You look good, though,” Naea said. “This is the part, by the way, that you go ‘Not as good as you.’ Maybe something about my beauty?”

He looked up at her. “Not as good as you. Something about my beauty.”

She choked on a snort, stepped toward him with a swish of her trailing dress and took his arm.

“And they say chivalry’s dead,” she told him.

“Yeah, sure,” Phrixus said.

He was consciously making himself look at a set number of things: the path ahead to the line spilling out of the theater, his stiff formal wear, and her. He would not squint around at the crowd and passerby, trying to spot someone he knew.

He’d made the mistake of doing this on one date already. It was not a good idea. She’d given him a knowing look and an eyeroll, and attempted to calculate the likelihood of running into anyone from the platoon or even the company. Just off the top of her head. And then made annoyingly convincing supports for her estimate.

He didn’t like being paranoid and jumpy like this. It’s just… well. He just was. He knew she thought it was more than just worrying about fraternization regs, even if she never said so. And maybe she was right. Because it’s not like they went out frequently enough for the risk of being found out to be particularly high; he could count their “real dates” on both hands. And he was fairly certain Lieutenant Tarqos already had some idea of what was going on.

So maybe she was on to something.

In any case, they gave their tickets to the usher and were ushered into the lobby area outside the theater. The important part with the bar. They got (extremely) stiff drinks so no one had to get up to get another, with all that nuisance with the squeezing past knees. And sticking your ass in someone’s face.

The lights went down, and the crowd hushed. The shimmer of the reflected projection washed over them, and the music and the dialogue trilled through the them. He’d seen it already; _Fleet and Flotilla_ is just one of those things that everyone’s seen. So you know what happens, but what happened the last time you saw it is honestly quite different from what you see now. And from what actually happens. You come to the movie different each time, so what you watch is not the same.

So they all sat, the large room full of people with their stiff drinks and their stiff clothes, sitting in the shadow of music and lights and romance. Thinking their own thoughts.

And at some point, he looked over at her. At the gentle set to her mandibles and the softness in her eyes. She’d been whispering to him about the liquor helping to suspend belief, and now–

What was she thinking of? Who was she remembering?

It wasn’t him. They weren’t dating. They’d placed no names on this.

And he knew it was something she was remembering, because that drink had been stiff and the lights had been darkly tender enough: he sat, staring at the screen, seeing some fictional bittersweet romance meant to give catharsis, and all he could think about was trading face caresses and kisses with Mira Ryder in between classes. Behind the school’s auxiliary buildings, touching her hair. The way she sighed and shifted. That invasive, insistent, acrid smell of human cigarette smoke.

He reached over, and clutched at Naea’s hand.

What were they all remembering?

-

Afterward, they walked the streets nearby for a while.

“Regiment’s going back to Ena Mar,” Naea stated.

“Yes.”

“Did you know I’m not going with?”

He nods. “Yeah.”

“A new posting, probably closer to home,” she said, meaning Palaven or at least the same system. “Do you think that’s far enough to put you at ease?”

“I’m not uneasy–”

“Phrixus.”

He looked at her. “Alright. Maybe I’m uneasy. I’m sorry.”

“Don’t apologize. I get that it’s important to you.”

“Yeah, but right now this is about all I can…” he trailed off, and squeezed her hand. “This is about all I can do. Is it enough for you?”

“I like this,” she said, squeezing back. “It’s enough. But I’m gonna be honest. It won’t always be.”

He paused, considering. “I understand.”

“Good. Let’s get dinner?”

“Yeah.”

-

He’s twenty-two when Mira contacts him, wanting to “say goodbye.”

The message gleamed over his omnitool, when he jerked forward from the force of a hard slap on his back.

“Jaril.”

“Lieutenant,” he answered, flipping his tool closed.

“Don’t call me that; you’re–”

“Enough of an asshole that you’ll be answering to me soon. You keep saying that. It keeps not happening.”

“Well,” Lieutenant Tarqos mused. “Maybe something’s coming down the line.”

Phrixus glanced at him. They stood in the shadow of their platoon’s building, the sparse and rigid vegetation of Ena Mar rattling with the planet’s nearly constant winds. An orange and purple landscape of crags and jutting rocks spread out around the military compound. The dark figures of watchtowers and artillery-grade turrets cut the citrine sky.

“You know something I don’t, sir?” Phrixus asked.

“Stop calling me ‘sir’ and I’ll spill,” Lieutenant Tarqos said.

Phrixus turned away; jackass was yanking him around. “Not going to happen, sir.”

Lieutenant Tarqos shrugged. He took a few steps away. “Suit yourself.”

He started whistling as he trailed away, swinging up a shotgun to knock against his shoulder. Phrixus had been on Ena Mar for over four years now, minus the year spent on geth clean up. Over four years under Lieutenant Tarqos, anyway. He’d been XO for two years. It was honestly about time he got his own command; and spirits be damned if he didn’t think he deserved it.

He would go where the Hierarchy needed him, but he knew he had something to give as an officer.

Several meters out, Lieutenant Tarqos turned back and called to him. “When’s your leave again?”

Like he didn’t know. Shit, maybe he didn’t.

“Four days and a wake up,” he answered.

“Right. Relax or something. You do that, right? Relax?”

“Fuck off, sir.”

Lieutenant Tarqos laughed and kept on walking.

Left alone, Phrixus looked back at his omnitool. He hadn’t had any concrete plans outside of going back to the Citadel and spending time with his moms. Sometimes he met up with Naea. But they hadn’t talked in awhile. Not since the last conversation.

She was twenty-seven now, pretty close to the usual retirement age for military. She could go ahead and request her discharge now, and in fact she was thinking about it. She’d put in her hours, done her service. Now she felt ready to put down roots. Find a company job or something. Maybe something non-Hierarchy. Buy a real home. Get serious about a relationship.

And here Phrixus was, still without his own command and not sure if it was going to happen or not.

Despite the fact that she wasn’t asking for marriage or an engagement or anything like that– just a confirmation that they would seriously call themselves dating– he didn’t feel ready for it. She’d been disappointed, and made no bones about telling him so. Still, she’d agreed to give him time. They both could think about it, have some space.

He didn’t know. Honestly couldn’t imagine all the space in the galaxy giving him any other incentive for making a commitment. And if he got a command, well, then he’d be wanting to focus on his new post. Was it just another thing about life that no time was really a good time for these things? Maybe he was just being afraid.

He scrolled through Mira’s message.

He’d heard through Forta about the “Andromeda Initiative,” but he hadn’t really thought seriously about it. Going under cryo for centuries to travel across dark space to a new galaxy? It sounded like a vid or something. New space, new worlds, discovery.

He… didn’t know what to think of it.

It was so foreign to the life he’d been living, to the life he saw before him.

He sent a reply to Mira, telling her he’d be on leave and on the Citadel soon.


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Confession time: this fic was meant to be a 2k one-shot with what happens here in this last chapter. But I have absolutely zero chill and it evolved into a 30k+ multi chapter thing. So this last part ended up being pretty special to me, and I enjoyed writing it. This whole work was great to write, and I’m proud of myself for finishing a thing for once! lol.
> 
> I’ve also tagged on an epilogue, because I was going to leave it at this, but then I thought just a touch more was need to show where Phrixus ended up.
> 
> Thank you for reading~!

They hadn’t met face to face in seven years.

That last glimpse of her as he boarded the ship for boot camp. Her golden brown face, frozen as she turned to watch him go. The messages caught on her tongue and in his omnitool logs, promises to wait. Things hadn’t turned out like they’d thought it would, and maybe that’s what the fear in her eyes knew back then.

But now, she stood at a corner of a busy lane in Silversun, looking at her tool and not realizing yet that he was nearby. She’d dressed up, heels. Not the running gear he remembered from those Arena days, and the messy house parties, beer everywhere. He smoothed down the front of his clothes and approached her.

She glanced up, and then did a double-take. Breaking into a grin, she straightened.

“Phri,” she said, arms going out for a hug.

A knot in his stomach he hadn’t even been aware of loosened at her reaction.

“Mira.”

He had to stoop a little (well, a lot) to comfortably get his arms around her. Released, she stumbled back on her heels, a hand going to her mouth.

“When did you get so tall?” she laughed.

“When did you get so short?” he returned.

She bit her lip, looking down. He watched, and then cleared his throat to look around. The holosky above had cycled into the dark period, the alleys and storefronts gleaming with neon lights and glittering advertisements. Hover vehicles hissed overhead, laughter and loud indistinguishable voices bouncing around the narrow valley of the building fronts. A dense traffic of every species in the galaxy sped around them.

“And when did this place get so small?” he asked.

She tucked a curl behind an ear. “It does seem different, doesn’t it?”

He looked back at her. Their eyes met, and the look made them both glance back away, laughing nervously.

“Um, sooo,” she said. “You hungry? There’s this new sushi place that’s supposed to be great.”

The restaurant sat up in one of the nicer high-rise buildings, looking over the vista of the dazzling neon and the writhing crowds below. Across the lane, another nice high-rise with a bar pulsed with music and dancing figures. The restaurant was pretty aggressive about showing you how fresh their food was; several aquariums divided areas of the dining floor, chefs occasionally coming out to scoop up the next order. Nice music and well-to-do waiters; it certainly wasn’t the greasy smoke and rickety, cheap aluminum tables from years ago.

After being seated in the dappled shadows of one of those aquariums and ordering drinks, (and after a great deal of nervous glances and smiles) Mira cleared her throat over the menu.

“How’re your moms?”

“Good,” he said. “They miss you.”

She smiled. “That’s sweet.”

As they waited for the bar to send over their drinks, they worked out their mutual nerves with catch-up smalltalk. Calix and Domera. Forta and Alec. Aela, N’tessa, N’kae, all the old faces. A little about their postings, Ena Mar and Mars.

The waiter came back around for their orders.

“Oh, umm. You go ahead,” Mira said, looking back down at the menu.

Phrixus ordered, and handed his menu back, eyeing her as she hummed and mumbled. The waiter waited with sardonic impassivity.

“Should I order for you?” Phrixus drawled.

She glanced up at him. Her eyes twinkled and she handed her menu to him, propping her head on her hands so her eyes could twinkle at him, full-force.

“Go ahead,” she said.

Phrixus reeled off an order, and then some. He went down the menu, picking out a good portion of the levo offerings. The waiter stared at him, their fingers flying across a datapad and face expressing nothing beyond a spot of boredom. Across from him, Mira’s brow was rising.

As the waiter walked off, she leaned toward him. “What are you doing? How am I supposed to eat all that?”

He gave her a look. “The reason you were always so indecisive is because you wanted _all_ the food, right?”

“What? That’s not true,” she huffed, biting at a grin.

He gave her a look.

“Okay, maybe a little true,” she snorted.

“So,” he said, tilting his head. “Let’s get all the food, then.”

Smiling, she looked down and shook her head.

As the drinks arrived, he sipped at his glass and considered her. She was different. Her face wasn’t like he remember, but then, nothing is ever as you remember. Older, more… streamlined? More real? More itself? Not fifteen anymore, but neither was he.

He put his glass down. “Okay. Seven year ice is broken. Tell me about the Andromeda Initiative.”

Running a finger through the condensation of her own glass, Mira considered her words.

“Well,” she said. “It’s a colonization venture. A hundred thousand colonists and personnel, with about equal percentages of the major Milky Way races. Dad is what they’re calling a ‘Pathfinder.’ Spearhead of the exploration once we get there. Forta and I are part of his team.”

“So this was all your dad’s idea?”

She nodded. “He’s actually been a big part of the part of the project planning. He’s made a contribution that’s, well, become essential.”

She hesitated, and leaned forward and lowered her voice. “It’s an AI.”

His mandibles jerked out and tucked back. What in the– something seemed strange here. AI research had long been illegal in Citadel space, and since when had Alec Ryder been doing such work? He thought back to those afternoons spent in the Ryder apartment. All of the terminals and boards with formulas. And. Surely the travel to an entirely new galaxy had nothing to do with… an AI. Right?

He cleared his throat. “But. Mira. Cryo sleep for six hundred years, traveling all those light years?”

“I know,” she said. “They have all this trial data and test analyses. It’s all going to be very safe.”

“That’s reassuring, but not really what I meant,” he said.

Her eyes shot down.

“…I know,” she murmured. “I mean. Honestly– I’m a little terrified.”

She stared aside at the teeming fish in the aquarium beside them, to lessen the impact of her words. Blue light played across her features. It didn’t make sense. He could logically think, in the very near future this person will no longer exist. She will be far and away, encased in icy air and falling through dark space. That the next time she wakes, the next time she ‘exists,’ he will no longer exist. Not his children, or his children’s children.

It didn’t make sense. Not Mira Ryder. Not the girl who… well. It was as if his whole being, from his mind down to his spirit, wanted to reject that thought wholly and totally.

“There’s still time, right?” he asked. “I mean, you don’t _have_ to…”

She was shaking her head at him before he finished. “A month. Well, more like a little over three weeks now. But, no, I do have to.”

He shifted, brow plate drawing down. He found himself staring at the dance of water’s prismatic shadows across her short-bridged nose as she continued.

“This is Dad’s– dream, I guess. It’s his life’s work. And Forta– you should hear him go on about all our potential colony sites and all the ‘adventure’ he’s planning on having. Exploration and all that. They both want this. And after Mom… I can’t lose them. I couldn’t…”

She smiled a smile that wasn’t a smile. “I mean, if it was Domera and Calix, could you just stay here and watch them go?”

He couldn’t.

“No,” he said.

Silence stretched between them. Then the waiter came around again, with another waiter, each shouldering great platters of little sushi plates, slices of orange and red and yellow and white fish. Translucent and fresh. Brilliant little piles of roe, gleaming and shiny. It was a wonder that the table didn’t sag under all of it. Mira gazed at it all, the dampness about her eyes giving away to a small smile.

“Well,” Phrixus said, picking up his eating sticks. “I guess we should eat.”

She coped him, and tilted her head. “I guess we should.”

The Initiative was put aside for the moment as they ate. And even though she protested an inability to consume all that fish, she made a point of trying everything. And telling him about every morsel, complaining about his dextro-ness coming between him and trying everything, too.

They finished eating and left, walking along the main lane of Silversun and not saying much of importance. Remembering, mostly. This or that place they got kicked out of. That spot where a really good ice cream stand used to be. They came to a stop in front of Armex Arsenal Arena.

Mira sighed. “Too bad we don’t have a full team. I could work off all these calories.”

Phrixus hummed. “You know, we lost the last match I was in? If I’d thought about it then…”

“Did we?” she mused, staring up at the radiating sign above them.

It surprised him how hard it was, walking along the old places with her. Her shoes clicking and their hands not meeting, holding the way they used to.

He turned to her. “You still a half-decent shot?”

She gazed up at him, a smirk at the corner of her lips. “Are you sure you want to find out? Don’t want to embarrass the Hierarchy and all.”

“Gun range, it is.”

They chose a VR range; they’d had one drink each, and a ton of food besides, but they were being responsible. Or something like that. And she was still a half-decent shot. Tossed off her shoes and wielded a rifle like another limb. They shared targets, and he suspected that anything he hit was only because she left it for him. Much more than a half-decent shot. It was a wonder that the Alliance had her stuffed away doing peacekeeping for some Prothean researchers, even if she did enjoy it.

That certainly wouldn’t fly in the Hierarchy. Someone’s a good shot and their potential isn’t utilized? That’s on their commanders for failure to strengthen the whole. Well. That’s how things _should_ be, anyways.

“You remember that big fight I got into with Aela?” Phrixus asked her, outside of the gun range and strolling down the main avenue. The couplet-declaiming elcor was still at the same corner, probably still working through the same play.

“How could I forget?” Mira smiled. “My wild and colorful youth wouldn’t be complete without it.”

He laughed. “I was a kind of an ass, wasn’t I?”

“A little,” she said. “But so was Aela.”

His mandibles flicked. “Well. I was just thinking. I was a bit naive back then. Maybe still am. But still, even if things weren’t perfect in this galaxy…”

She paused, her feet stopping. The bass rippling from a club nearby brushed against them, with a wash of gold and orange. She looked up at him.

“Even if things aren’t perfect, I’m glad people still expect it to be,” she said. “I’m glad that _you_ do.”

One of her hands reached out, on instinct, out of deep-buried habit maybe, toward him. It dropped halfway, though. She swallowed and looked away.

“This galaxy isn’t perfect,” she said. “And the next one won’t be either. But I guess– I guess we still should keep hoping, though. Right?”

He looked down at her. His head swam with dizziness of unknown origin. He’d only had the one drink hours ago, and he didn’t get VR motion sickness. What was he supposed to say? It still didn’t make sense to him, that she was shortly going to cease to exist. That was an exaggeration, but– deep down, he’d thought that even if they didn’t speak every day, even if years went in between seeing one another, even if they weren’t meant to be together– even then, he’d thought he’d always know she was out there, somewhere. Living her life, being happy somehow, with someone else.

“I guess,” he managed.

They walked on. A Thing was walking with them. It egged them on, prevented them from stopping. Kept them a certain distance apart. This Thing was a composite: the years between them, all the unsaid things, the frightening things ahead. And– she knew about Naea. He’d told her, some months ago, and he knew she wasn’t seeing anyone. Still, neither one of them was saying anything about it. They were on a date, no point being coy about it, but neither of them would say anything.

Probably neither of them ever would. They’d just let it be this Thing between them.

The street wound around, pushing them past the dark shops and the bright arcades and bars and restaurants, deep into the quieter parts of Silversun. “Quiet” being a relative term; there were still drunks at the food stands, gangs of kids hooting about nonsense.

Mira slowed down beside him, and moved into the shadow of a closed storefront. She leaned against the black glass, and lifted an ankle to her fingers.

“Sorry,” she told him. “My feet are killing me. What I get, I guess. Wearing these things.”

He shifted under the darkness with her. Her neck, lined with a soft red glow from somewhere, turned toward him.

“Listen,” she said softly. “Phrixus. I just wanted… well. When I messaged you, I wanted to say that you’ve always been there, in the back of my mind. I’ve always hoped… that you were happy. I know things ended up like they did with us, but I never stopped, you know– caring.”

“I…” he started. “Me too. I really never expected this. I thought for sure someday you’d be… I don’t know. In love and happy somewhere. I had hoped so, anyway. I’m sorry about back then. I wasn’t there for you. You deserved more. You still do.”

He could vaguely make out the way her expression loosened. “I’m sorry, too. I was so– immature and clingy.”

He shook his head. “Mira, you were lonely. You were a lonely girl with a sea of friends doing her best to make herself feel better.”

She sputtered with a wobbly laugh. “Wow. Not pulling punches, huh?”

“I thought we were being honest.”

“Yeah,” she said. “Then– Phrixus, you’re a good person, you know that? You deserve more than just duty and the Hierarchy. You should be happy. But you’re not going to be unless you let yourself have it. Stop putting yourself last. It makes the people that love you sad.”

He was silent. He deserved that, he supposed. His eyes could distinguish her better now: the way she bent back into the glass of the storefront and her face turned up to him. She shifted from foot to foot, probably dying to get off her feet.

“Anyway,” she sighed. “I– I don’t know. There’s a lot that I wished I knew how to say, but– well, you know. I needed to say goodbye, and… Thank you. For letting me say it.”

His heart stuttered. Because it didn’t make any logical sense. How could she say it already– it was too soon, there hadn’t been enough time. She was saying goodbye, and not just goodbye, but _goodbye_. As final as it comes. Because in less than a month she would be pulled from the same plane of existence that he lived in. She would somewhere he couldn’t reach, couldn’t even message. Not Mira Ryder. Not the girl he’d…

“Wait,” he said.

He reached out and took her wrist.

“Wait,” he repeated. “Mira, I’ve thought about it. And I’ve regretted a lot of things I said back then, but what I hate most is what I didn’t say–”

He took her other hand, his chest tight and pounding, his head swimming.

“I never told you I loved you.”

She inhaled, and he took another step closer.

“I never said it,” he said softly. “Not back then, when we actually…”

And she blinked furiously. “I didn’t either. Back then…”

And then he was slipping a hand around her waist, pulling himself into her. And he was looking into her eyes for a confirmation, seeing himself outlined in soft red light like her. And then he was crashing into her again like he’d done so many times before, and it was nothing like it had been and far too much like before.

Their foreheads tapped, harder than before, and rolled, much more quickly than before, and their mouths searched for each other– much more painfully than before. And she gasped, the way that used to drive his fourteen-year-old self bonkers when he remembered in the middle of chemistry. He clutched at her, pulling her by the small of her back up into him, and her hands flew up across his neck, seeking that tender flesh underneath his mandibles.

And then their chests met, pushed against one another (equal and opposite forces), because he was pulling and clutching and her feet may have left the ground, he couldn’t be sure. Her wet tongue, so unlike his, swept and sought the soft spots, toying and cloying. That hair, curling and falling everywhere, washed him in something sweet and floral. Old colors floated through his head: lavender and peach. She mumbled his name into his mouth, and that set him aching and thrilled him. Shot him full of adrenaline and heat. Pierced his heart. He had his hands slipping beneath her, pulling her up and yanking at her skirt.

An abrupt, loud, and sharp wolf-whistle shattered the quiet.

“That’s not protocol for interspecies cooperation!”

Phrixus and Mira jerked, and she slid down from his hands. He whirled. Four kids stood meters away, holding in giggles and staring.

“Say that again you little fuck,” Phrixus stated, low and flat.

“ _Fucking spirits, run_!” one of them shouted.

And off they went, running for their lives and shrieking with laughter. Phrixus didn’t even bother with a single step after them; he turned back to her. She looked at him. And they burst into laughter.

“Oh my god, I can’t believe–”

“Shit–”

She raised a hand to her red face. “I guess this _is_ a public area”

They stood, giggling and slightly breathless and dizzy, in the dark recess of a storefront. The lane was quiet, with only a few passerby; the most sound came from the distant music and crowds of the main strip, and the ringing of a food stall owner’s cooking utensils a block away. But even so, even with the interruption (which had floored him and made him wonder if some other kid would remember the way he had), they didn’t make an effort to move. She shifted, pushing back down at her skirt with the heel of a palm.

“Mira,” he said, his hand brushing her elbow. “Don’t go tonight.”

She stared up at him, her voice going small. “You sure?”

He nodded. When her expression didn’t change, he reached for her hand. “You didn’t think this might happen?”

She shrugged. “I don’t know– I guess so, maybe. It’s not like I could have made the first move, though.”

“I’m sure,” he said. “Are you?”

She squeezed his hand. “Yeah.”

-

Hours later, in the hotel room, she leaned across to the nightstand and fished around in the little bag she’d had.

“Do you care if I smoke?” she asked, her smooth back turned to him.

“You’re still doing that?” he asked.

She settled back, and a little flame lit her face as she clicked a lighter.

“When I can,” she said, exhaling white into the deep blue darkness. “Ship regulations are so strict, and so are most military buildings. Whole planets, even.”

As she considered her hand, he put an arm around her, and she leaned into it.

“This is my very last one, though. Can’t bring a habit like this across two-point-five million light years.”

The smell, harsh and unsympathetic, brought back the image of her bare back, from before, turned to him. Things unsaid and fear sitting between them. When was that? Just before he left, it must have been.

“Your last one, with me?” he murmured. “What an honor.”

Softly, she laughed. “You’d be surprised. Generally, people say they hate it. The smell and all. Cancer. But when I do this, they remember.”

“So this is one of your _moves_ ,” he said.

“Yeah,” she grinned up at him. “It is. And you were the first I used it on. Did it work?”

He moved his hand up, gently sweeping sticking curls off the side of her face. “Yes. But you didn’t need a move to make me remember.”

Her smile changed from playful teasing to something softer. “Sorry. Just–”

Pausing, she went for another inhale and exhale. His fingers toyed with her hair. That was one thing he missed: the feathery feeling of curls between his fingers.

“Sorry, Phrixus,” she whispered. “I really just wanted someone here to remember me. I’m the one going ahead, I know, but I’m scared I’ll…”

She pulled up and turned around to face him. “I just need to know someone here will remember me. Really remember me. And you were– the first for so many things for me. You…”

“I know,” he said. He touched her cheek, lightly grazing with a soft talon. “I won’t forget. Some things are permanent.”

-

But before that, a pharmacy had to be hunted down (and then came the jokes about getting high not being the objective that night) and the hotel found. They chose a new one, not one of the ones they used to sit outside of and watch the pairs (and sometimes then some) pay by the hour.

There was a Thing between them. It was the years, the long silences, the hurtful words, and the good things left unsaid. It was other people, other responsibilities, their own assholery in going this far. It was the future, and the finality of what tomorrow would bring.

But there was also a Thing that tied them. Equal and opposite. All the firsts, all the smiles, all the shared tears. As fragile and ephemeral as they seem, imprinted as they are in their finite, fallible memories– some things are permanent.

When the room’s door hissed behind them, she held him, arms reaching up and grasping desperately. The hateful shoes slipped off and his clothes peeled away. He was fourteen again, discovering someone anew, becoming vulnerable. The way he clutched her to him and the way he ran his hands over her warm skin– it was new and old. The way she fell back and pulled him under– it was strange and familiar.

It was overwhelming, the feeling that overcame him as they shuddered together. It was too much, and yet–

Not enough.

What more could be said, though?

Some things were permanent.

-

She left in the morning without saying anything. He pretended to be asleep as she leaned over him, and ran light fingers over a mandible.

Just over three weeks later, the Andromeda Initiative launched.


	10. Epilogue

He’d barely turned twenty-three when the Reaper War began.

“War” was a funny way of describing it, though. Whole colonies vaporized into fine dust adrift in the vacuum, planets and governments collapsing under the weight of complete population eradication, a galaxy suddenly constructed of refugees and orphans, the very idea of the nuclear family unit incinerated by red light.

This wasn’t war. It was an extinction event.

When the Reapers swept through the Trebia Relay, the regiment on Ena Mar retreated from the Traverse back to the home system to protect Palaven. Lieutenant Tarqos and the platoon ended up on Menae to defend the moon’s military base from the shambling husks, the skittering ravagers, and the onslaught of the occasional brute. When an actual Reaper, its enormity overwhelming their eyes and minds, the very core of their understanding, lands with its great sweeps of inexorable red death– there was nothing ground infantry like them can do but take cover and keep shooting at the targets on their level.

The Hierarchy does not retreat. Die for the cause.

Phrixus watched, then, as his friend Ruq ran before a solid wall of the Reaper’s glare, tripped, and dissipated into so much fine particulate in the air.

Half the platoon disappeared, just like that, in a blink of the eye. Like someone had edited a vid, removing too many frames and left this visual gap where once were all his squadmates. Lieutenant Tarqos, too.

Well. He’d gotten his promotion.

As the scorched wind of live rounds shrilled around him, he received an order from some captain he’d never seen before, young like him and probably promoted moments ago just like him: he was to move to a transmitted location to cover the retreat of some bigshot back to base camp. No name of this person or reason why a single troop should receive all this coverage. It didn’t matter. He had orders and that was all the reason Phrixus needed.

Phrixus screamed at the ragged handful left in his command. They reacted immediately and changed course, staggered pairings pulling back and covering for each other.

They all ran, doing their best not lose anyone else and failing. The primeval thunder of the Reaper smashed against them bodily in a steady, terrible rhythm, and what was left of the platoon pounded over slippery scree and through gorey mud. Over bodies, both reaper and turian.

And despite his training, despite his knowing it could get him killed, Phrixus let his mind cling to faraway places. The Citadel. Communications had been battered and spotty. He hadn’t spoken to his moms in weeks. He hadn’t heard from Aela in months, didn’t even know where she’d been when the invasion began.

Naea. She’d retired and taken a position for a Citadel-based company, programming security systems. A few months ago they had agreed to take the relationship seriously.

What fucking timing, huh?

He wanted to call her. To tell her he was sorry for stringing her along for years. For being a coward. He wanted to tell her what she really meant to him. That he hoped she’ll give him a chance to do better when this is over, when things are–

He really was going to get himself killed with hopes like that. He was blinding himself to the death all around him.

He thought of the Ryders. Mira.

It was funny.

At the time he thought she was sending herself into a gentle, icy death out in the depths of empty space. And even if that was the case, it would be a far better fate than what all of them left behind would suffer.

But maybe while he was risking his neck with hoping, he could hope too that she reached a new and happier world. And maybe he could hope some part of himself, some small bit of his memory, would survive with her.

He could go on then, maybe, in some paradise two point five three seven million light years from here.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading~


End file.
